Maximum Twilight
by QueenFan16
Summary: What would happen if Max and the Flock somehow met Edward and Bella and the family. Pre-Twilight and onward. Disclaimer for complete story, I do NOT own any of the characters. Thanks for letting people use them. I'm sorry if I quote directly.
1. Preface

PREFACE

**Max's POV**

I HEARD THAT ANNOYING VOICE FOR THE FIRST TIME TWO WEEKS AFTER New Year's Day in 2005.

_Max, _it said. _Go to Forks, Washington. Someone will need your help soon. Make sure you buy a laptop in Port Angeles and bring the bomb-making equipment. You're going to have an interesting time._

I didn't hear any more after that, but I had a killer headache — it felt like my head was exploding.

Somehow, I knew that the voice was right. It was the middle of the night and we were all sleeping in our little house in the Colorado mountains, I had a headache... and somebody in Forks, Washington needed our help.

I immediately woke up Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel.

"Why'd you have to wake us up now, Max?" Fang asked. "We're tired and it's"— he looked at the clock on his nightstand —"two a.m. Can't it wait until morning?"

"No," I snapped. "We have to leave, _now_." That woke him up. He was in full alert mode now.

"Is it Erasers? How many?" He began firing off questions like crazy as everyone else gathered in the room — also in full alert mode despite the time.

I cut him off. "No, it's not Erasers, but it's just as bad I can feel it."

"How do you know?" asked Angel. Sweet little Angel should not have been doomed to a life like this — always running from something — or in this case _to_ something.

"Well, I was just sleeping and suddenly, I hear this weird voice. It said, 'Max, go to Forks, Washington. Someone will need your help there soon,' nothing more. Then I wake up with a killer headache, but I know I have to believe it. So now we have to go to this Forks place and see what's going on," I explained.

"Okay," Fang said. "We'll go to Forks, but can we please gather some stuff first?"

"Sure," I said. "Gather anything you think might help. Ig, Gazzy, gather your bomb making equipment, we'll need it. I don't know how I know, but I do. We'll stop to buy a laptop in a city called Port Angeles." _Voice, _I thought, _I don't know if you can hear me but thanks, but can we stop giving me headaches?_

Somehow, I knew everything would turn out okay — at least whatever the Voice was talking about — even though we're mutant freaks who are always running from danger.

_Oh, and, Max,_ the Voice said, surprising me. _You're going to go to school._

That freaked me out so much I almost screamed, but I swallowed it and stayed silent. Fang came over.

"Yo, what's wrong Max? Are you getting another headache already?" I shook my head.

"We're going to school," I said, still frozen. Looks like everyone else was after that little announcement.

**Alice's POV**

WHY DID EVERYTHING IN THE FUTURE JUST BECOME SO FUZZY? AS I looked into the future to even see the weather next week, things became fuzzier and fuzzier.

_Edward,_ I called in my mind, maybe my brother would know what was going on. He was there in a second.

"Yes, Alice?" he said, wondering why I had just thought it instead of saying it.

"There's a problem with my visions. What could happen that would make even the _weather_ fuzzy?"

"It means we will encounter someone or something that you have never seen probably," he said grimly. I could tell he wasn't happy about this either.

When I searched for who or what was causing this, the picture was clear as day. It was a girl with longer brownish hair that looked as if it had been hacked off with a kitchen knife — she would _need_ my help with fashion too, how old _were_ those clothes? — and brown eyes as I zoomed out of the picture, I gasped. What surprised me was not the three boys and two girls surrounding her, but the fact that they all had _wings_.

Edward saw the vision too and to say he was surprised would be the understatement of the century — he was speechless.

_Should we tell the others?_

"No."


	2. Arrivals

1. ARRIVALS

**Bella's POV**

CHARLIE PICKED ME UP AT THE AIRPORT AND THE DRIVE TO HIS HOUSE WAS SILENT AS ALWAYS. I TOOK THE TIME to wonder about things like why I moved here.

Why did I move here? Well that's an easy question to answer, but harder to explain. I moved here because my mom, Renee, wanted to move around with my step-father Phil and my step-sister Brigid. I didn't even think Phil and Brigid were related. Brigid's hair was bright red, while Phil's was a sort of blondish. Why didn't I move around with them? That I can't answer with anything but that it felt... right to come here.

Just then, I saw six giant shadows passing next to the car. I looked up to see what could have made such large shadows — maybe it was a blimp or something.

When I looked up, I saw six pairs of wings, but the bodies attached to them were not avian — they were... _human_? I even saw what the girl in front looked like. I must be going crazy, but I can't erase the image of that girl from my brain. Her clothes were dirty, slightly tattered, here shoes muddy and worn. No...it's just my imagination, some of Renee must have rubbed off on me.

Charlie interrupted my reverie by when when he said, "Bella, I found a car for you. It runs great and it's cheap."

"What kind?" I asked, suspicious of what he meant by "good car for _you_".

"Well, actually, it's a Chevy truck."

"Where'd you find it?"

"Do you remember Billy Black in La Push?" he asked. La Push is the little Indian reservation on the coast.

"No," I replied.

"We used to go fishing together during the summer," he said. That explained it. I had stopped the fishing trips by the time I was eleven.

"Well, now he's in a wheelchair and he can't drive. He offered to sell me the truck cheap," Charlie continued, oblivious to my lack of response.

"What year is it?" Anyone could see that Charlie had hoped I wouldn't ask this question.

"Well, a lot of work has been done on the engine — it's not really that old even."

"When did he get it?" I asked.

"I believe he bought it in 1984."

"Was it new when he bought it?"

"Well, I think it was new in the early sixties, maybe the late fifties," he admitted.

"Ch-Dad, I don't know much about cars. I couldn't fix it if anything happened, and I don't think I could afford a mechanic..."

"Really, Bella, I told you, it runs great. The thing was built to last — they don't make 'em like that anymore."

_The thing_, I thought...at least it could make a great nickname.

"How cheap _is_ cheap?" I asked, knowing that this was the one thing that I could not compromise on.

"Well, Bells, I already bought it for you. It's your homecoming gift." Charlie peeked at me hopefully.

He bought it for me? Wow.

"Dad, you didn't have to buy me a car, I had some money saved."

"I don't mind, honey. I just want you to be happy here," he said, looking straight ahead while doing so. Neither of us were comfortable with expressing emotions aloud, so I was facing the same way when I responded.

"That's really nice of you, Dad. Thanks. I really appreciate it." It didn't seem right to add that I could never be happy in Forks; I didn't want him to suffer along with me.

"You're welcome," he muttered sheepishly.

It was pretty much quiet until we got to the house; it was still the same old two-bedroom house it had been when he and Mom bought it. Out front was an ancient truck, the paint was faded, it had giant rounded fenders and a bulbous cab... and I loved it.

"Wow! Dad, I love it! Thanks!" At least I wouldn't have to worry about either walking two miles in the rain, or riding in Charlie's cruiser to school.

When I went to sleep that night, I dreamt of the strange girl with wings.

**Max's POV**

WE LEFT ABOUT TWO HOURS AFTER I TOLD THEM THAT WE WERE GOING TO SCHOOL, IT ONLY TOOK THEM A FEW minutes to accept the fact that we were going to school. Despite this though, it took us four days to get to Forks and find a house. We had to stop for food sometimes and bought the laptop in Port Angeles.

We found a nice place to stay in the woods but figured it would be better to have a house if we were going to _school_.

On our search for a house, we passed over one car and the girl in the passenger's seat looked up at us. Somehow I felt that this would be the person we had to protect. I swooped down a bit. She looked up, so I rose back up. Did she see me? I hope not. This girl didn't look like she would be in any danger soon.

_Trust your instincts, Max,_ the Voice said.

_Thanks, Voice. No headache this time._

_Just go with what your instincts tell you. If they say that this girl is in trouble, listen to them. Trust what you know, not what you see._

My argument with the Voice was interrupted by Angel.

"Max, what's wrong?" she asked.

"It's nothing," I answered.

"Then why did I hear thoughts about our wings?"

_Oh, no!_ She must have seen us.

"Angel, Sweetie, someone probably just has a wild imagination." I sure hoped that was true.

"Yeah, that's what she thought too."

"As long as she doesn't think it's real."

Now, you're probably wondering: how do you guys have the money to buy a house. Well, we don't. We met some people that are allowing us to live with them, although we did buy the laptop ourselves. Nudge is...good with electronics. She can hack just about any computer — or ATM — you give her. She just touches it and sees how to get in—a password or something. She can, like, pick up vibrations from recent use.

And now for the torture. Tomorrow, we start school.

WE PASSED OVER THAT NICE SPOT IN THE WOODS, AND HEARD THE SOUND OF SOMETHING BEING TORN APART. I was a little worried and opted to swoop down a little bit.

"Guys, we'll go down a bit, but keep your guard up," ordered.

When we were a few yards above the treetops, Angel said, "That's weird. All I can hear in their thoughts is 'Blood, blood, blood, blood!'."

At that moment, the tearing stopped. "Who's there?" said a velvety voice.

"Uh, oh. Let's go," I said, whispering as low as I could.

"Don't try whispering, I can still hear you. How are you up that high in the trees anyway?" said the voice.

"Okay, guys, let's go land in the trees and see this guy. Keep your guard up, he might be an Eraser." Complete with supersonic hearing, must be a new version. They nodded and we silently landed in the tops of the trees.

"Edward, what are they talking about 'Erasers'?" asked another, deeper voice.

_So the voice has a name_. I thought to myself.

"Yes, I have a name!" Edward shouted, irritatedly.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" I asked, just as angrily.

"Emmett, don't try to attack them. They don't mean to hurt us unless we hurt them. They're actually kind of scared of us," he said, addressing the well muscled man who had the deeper voice. Apparently, Edward had a kind of bronze-ish hair, he looked strong, but in an athletic way, not body-builder-like. There was one more with them; she was a pixie-looking girl with dark brown spiky hair. "I'm sorry," he said, addressing me now. "Emmett is kind of...excitable when he thinks there may be a fight. I feel it's only right to introduce us properly. I'm Edward, this is Emmett, and the annoying pixie is Alice," he said, receiving a hard elbow from Alice.

"Max," Angel whispered, "they keep thinking about vampires, at least Emmett does. Alice is reciting the pledge of allegiance in — I think it's Greek, and Edward's mind is...there are a lot of voices in Edward's mind." Weird.

"Thanks, Sweetie." Maybe Edward has multiple personality disorder.

"No, I do not!" he yelled up to us. Don't what?

"Edward, I still can't see anything!" Alice complained. She had a wind chime-like voice.

"Alice, I never promised anything," he said, annoyed still. "I said _maybe_ you'll be able to see better." Don't know what that conversation was about.

What does she mean by that? Is she blind?

"Edward, do not answer whatever she just thought!" I heard her hiss. _Thought?_ _What is he, some sort of mind reader?_

"I think so," Angel said quietly.

At the same time, Edward said, "Yes. I assume that the one you call Angel is as well?"

_I'm not answering,_ I thought in a sing-song voice.

"Thank you, Iggy."

"Hey, no picking thoughts out of my brain!" exclaimed Ig.

The Gasman and Fang were doing a nice job keeping their thoughts in check I guess. What the heck is Nudge thinking about?

"Nudge is as bad as Alice. She wants to go shopping apparently. She's already identified the designers of our clothes."

"Yay!" Alice sang while jumping up and down and clapping. "I get a new shopping buddy!"

"Alice, you still can't see," Edward reminded her, instantaneously making her pout.

"Wait, you're blind too?" Iggy asked, looking towards Alice.

"Not the way you are," she grumbled.

Edward turned to address us. "So I guess this is going to be a one-sided conversation?" he asked.

"Can we trust you? Can we be sure that you're not Erasers?"

"What's an Eraser? From the way you talk about it, I'm guessing that it's not good."

"It's true, Max. They have no idea what Erasers are. And I think we can trust them. They have a big secret that they've been keeping too," said Angel.

"Okay then. Prepare yourselves. Guys, lets get down there." We spread our wings and maneuvered through the trees to get down to the ground. Iggy crashed a couple of times. He wasn't used to being in close spaces when he didn't know the way around perfectly.

"Wow!" said Emmett. "You guys can fly?" The others showed no emotion at all,

"Yeah," I said. "Now spill. What's the deal with you guys? What are you?" I asked, then tacked on as an afterthought, "And why was Emmett the only one who was surprised by our flying?"

"Okay. I'll answer the last question first. Emmett's the only one who is surprised because Alice is a psychic and I was there when she had the vision."

"Edward! Why do I see you actually telling them?" asked Alice.

"Alice, they can keep the secret. They've kept theirs since birth," he answered. Then he did a double take. "Wait, you can see again?"

"Apparently when we met them, it cleared up my vision a bit, now it's crystal clear."

"Aw man! Now I'm the only blind one again," Iggy whined.

"Ig, be quiet!"

He pouted but did as he was told. For once.

I turned back to Edward. "Now, what is your big secret that the psychic doesn't want to trust us with?"

"We should go back to our house to explain this. I'm sure you could use some new clothes and food Esme would love to meet you. And of course, Carlisle would like to learn all about you, he's a doctor," he explained.

"Okay," I said hesitantly.

We began heading in a straight line southwest.

"Is it just a straight line to your house, because I really would prefer to run."

"Yes," Edward said. "Do you think you can keep up?" he challenged. "No flying," he tacked on.

"I think we can keep up," I said, grinning. "Right guys?" They nodded in response.

"Okay, line up. On the count of three." They all nodded. To the flock, on the count of three was on the count of one, they all knew that. "One!" I said

We took off at a dead run. The Cullens were left in the dust, but caught up quickly. I poured on the speed, as did the others. We over took Alice and Emmett, but Edward was still out front. I put on even more speed and passed him within seconds. In about two seconds I saw a massive white house, but there was a giant river between me and the house. As I ran up to it, I put all my strength into a huge jump and cleared it by a few yards.

Once I reached the front porch of the house, I saw everyone else just crossing the river.

Edward immediately ran up to me. "Didn't you say the count of three?" He asked. He wasn't even breathing hard. In fact, it looked like he wasn't breathing at all; nor was I—the breathing hard part I mean.

"Yeah. In flock speak, that always means count of one." I explained.

"Well, you were pretty fast out there. Faster than me — which is really saying something."

"Thanks," I said.

Everyone caught up to us then. None of the flock was panting, despite that being our top speed. We had been designed to be able to breathe in extremely thin air.

Edward said, "Shall we?"

"Okay," I said, straightening up. "Come on, guys."

Edward held the door open for everyone — except me. I would never turn my back on someone who felt dangerous, despite Angel saying that I could trust them. I wouldn't move until he had gone in.

The first thing that happened when we came in was that a blond girl started yelling at Emmett who had apparently torn his shirt sometime during the outing and we hadn't noticed — at least not me. There were two blond guys and a caramel haired woman there as well. Sorry, the _first_ thing that happened was all my anxiety went away — as if it had been washed away by a current.

"Rose, it was an accident! You know how I am after —" She cut him off there. I'm guessing he was going to say something that we wouldn't understand until we heard what they were. I saw Edward nod out of the corner of my eye.

I tapped the others hands, letting them know to memorize escape routes. They nodded.

Rose then turned her glare on Edward. "Edward, why did you bring a bunch of humans here?"

"They're not exactly human Rosalie, do you hear their heartbeats? Much faster than that of a human. They also smell different."'

"Okay," I said. "You guys have some serious explaining to do. We showed you our secret, now you tell us yours."

"Let me introduce you to the rest of my family and tell them what we know about you first." He turned to face his family. "These are Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, and Rosalie," he said pointing first to the older looking blond male, then the caramel haired woman, the other blond male, and finally the tall, blond girl. "Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rose, these are Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman a.k.a. Gazzy, and Angel," he said pointing us out in turn.

"Oh, dear! You look half starved! I'll get you something to eat. Anything in particular?" asked Esme. She was like the kind of mother I would like to have: caring, sweet, and all around nice. Then I saw the Gasman opening his mouth, about to ask for something. I shot him a look saying _don't even think about it._ He shut his mouth right away.

"Thank you, Esme. You know, that isn't really necessary though. We ate more than usual on the way over here."

"It's no trouble, Max. I enjoy cooking. It gives me something to do. There's no reason for me to cook around here. Oh, Alice, do you think you could help them find some new clothes? They look as if they've been living on the streets. No offense."

"None taken, we kind of do, which has to do with our secret which brings us back to you," I said.

"First you guys need some new clothes. Edward will tell the rest about your secret." She _is_ an annoying pixie. I saw Edward smirk out of the corner of my eye. Apparently, I didn't know how annoying she could be. "Come _on_," she whined, tugging on my arm. For a little pixie, she sure was strong.

We ran up to her room and she immediately started pulling clothes out of a humongous closet. I was horrified to find that most of them were either tight-fitting, or — gag — dresses.

"Okay, we don't have much time, so you won't be able to play fashion models, I'll just use my vision to see what looks best." I was about to protest when she said, "And you _will_ wear what I pick out." I swear if that pixie tries to stuff me into one of those dresses, I will rip her head off. "Max, I think you're going to need one of Rose's outfits. You're kind of taller than I expected." Good, at least I'm not stuck in one of her dresses. I still hope I can just get something comfy like sweatpants or jeans and a t-shirt. "No, absolutely not." Dang pixie.

"You'll get used to her," Edward called from downstairs.

"I don't mean to break up this little conversation, but if you haven't noticed, these are all _girls'_ clothes. I'm a _guy_. I can't wear girls' clothes." Fang was whining; he never whined. Something is wrong here.

"Oh, be quiet. Jasper's closet is over there. You'll be able to find something in there. I don't think he'll mind... no, you're okay. Although he will mind going shopping again. You'd think he'd be used to it after —. Oops, Edward really doesn't want me to spill the beans, he'd be angrier than ever before. No one should know about us, if someone found out, the Volturi would burn us and definitely kill them. Unless they're useful to them..."

"Alice, can we just get the clothes and get downstairs?" I was getting really impatient.

"Ugh! Fine! Nudge, Angel, you guys can wear these. You can come with us and change in Rose's room." She thrust a sky blue dress at Nudge — who practically squealed over it — and a sea blue dress at Angel — who didn't care either way. "Fang, Iggy, I already have your outfits picked out. Iggy, wear a tan t-shirt and khaki's. Fang, you should wear a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans and help Iggy find his clothes. Gazzy — we don't exactly have something small enough for you, so your clothes will be a bit baggy — a gray t-shirt and some jeans will be fine. Come on, Max, Angel, Nudge." Poor Fang, he wouldn't get to wear his usual plain black ensemble.

She led me down the hallway to another room. I was beginning to notice a pattern; all their rooms were very pale, as were their clothes, so were they. Maybe they're albino? No, they're acting like this is too big of a secret for them to just be albino; besides, why would they be specifically burned, but the rest of us just killed?

"Okay, I think turquoise will look nice on you... Yep turquoise is good. Oh my gosh! I forgot to give the others their shoes, wear the black sandals with the heels. Okay, you can handle yourself. I'll go help the others." I put on the ridiculous dress.

The dress — which was short to begin with — only came down to about my mid-thigh, it was low-cut and had spaghetti straps. It was exactly the opposite of what I would wear in a normal situation. All I normally cared about was just having clothes that weren't too constricting and allowed enough movement to kick some butt. Dresses did not do that. I'll admit, it did look nice, but it was not worth it. Besides, dresses do not look good under too-big jackets used to hide wings.

Which brought my mind back to their secret. If this secret is as big as it seems... they must be dangerous, I should be worried, I should not be wearing a dress, the others should not be so comfortable, and I should be helping whoever will need it. Yet here I was, in the middle of a houseful of whatever they were and completely at ease. Wait... I had been really anxious before I walked in... oh, well, it's probably nothing.

I strapped on the shoes and nearly fell. _This is why I wear sneakers. _I wobbled my way over to the stairs and nearly fell again twice. As I hobbled down, I saw that everyone else was there.

Good. Let the secrets be told.

**Angel's POV**

WHEN MAX SAID WE WERE GOING SOMEWHERE, I THOUGH THAT THERE WERE PROBABLY ERASERS. WHEN SHE said we were going to school, I knew that was wrong. Max would never make us go to school — especially with Erasers chasing us. I was actually wondering

As we flew over Forks, trying to find a house — it would seem really weird if we went to school, but didn't have a house — I heard some new thoughts.

_What's making those giant shadows? Is it a blimp or something?_ I saw Max swoop down a little bit. _Wait _— _those aren't birds! That shadow in front is a girl!_ Max came back up then. She looked worried.

_That girl has wings? That can't be possible... Ren__e__e must have rubbed off on me._

"Max, what's wrong?" I asked.

"It's nothing," she said.

"Then why did I hear thoughts about our wings?"

"Angel, Sweetie, someone probably just has a wild imagination." I sure hoped that was true.

"Yeah, that's what she thought."

"Good, as long as she doesn't think it's real."

Tomorrow, we get to go to school. I've always wanted to go to a real school, just to see what it's like. Maybe I'll like it.

WE PASSED OVER A NICE SPOT IN THE WOODS THAT WE HAD FOUND EARLIER AND HEARD SOMETHING BEING torn up.

"Guys, we'll go down a bit, but keep your guard up," Max said.

When we were a few yards above the treetops, I heard, _Blood, blood, blood, blood!_ It was weird so I decided to tell Max.

"That's weird. All I can hear in their thoughts is 'Blood, blood, blood, blood!'."

That's when the noises stopped. "Who's there?" said a velvety sounding voice.

"Uh, oh. Let's go," Max whispered.

"Don't try whispering, I can still hear you. How are you up that high in the trees anyway?" said the voice.

"Okay, guys, let's go land in the trees and see this guy. Keep your guard up, he might be an Eraser." Why would Max make us go towards an Eraser? This guy even had an Eraser-y voice — the kind of voice that would ask you to jump off a cliff and you would. Even though we were all wondering this, we nodded and landed in the treetops. Whatever Max says goes.

"Edward, what are they talking about 'Erasers'?" asked another, deeper voice.

"Yes, I have a name!" Edward shouted. He sounded kind of like Max does when Fang sneaks up on her.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" Max asked, in the same tone.

I was kind of scared, so I decided to listen to their thoughts.

_Edward! Can we just get them? I really hope they don't find out we're va _—_. AHHH! Edward, don't kill me!_

_Emmett, shut your mind up!_

_Why can't I see? This is so frustrating! Wait _— _don't give anything away. __Δεσμεύω την υποταγή, στη σημαία, των Ηνωμένων Πολιτειών της Αμερικής… _

_Please don't be Erasers. Please don't be Erasers..._

I heard all these thoughts, but I heard them in two different places from each person, like an echo. Except one. That was kind of the mind where the others were echoing.

"Emmett, don't try to attack them. They don't mean to hurt us unless we hurt them. They're actually kind of scared of us," he said to the bigger, muscle-y guy with the deep voice. Edward had a kind of bronze-ish hair, he looked strong, but in an athletic way, not body-builder-like. There was a girl with them; she was a pixie-looking girl with dark brown spiky hair. They were all very pale and the muscle-y one had torn his shirt. "I'm sorry," he said, talking to Max. "Emmett is kind of...excitable when he thinks there may be a fight. I feel it's only right to introduce us properly. I'm Edward, this is Emmett, and the annoying pixie is Alice," he said, receiving a hard elbow from the girl. Was she a real pixie? She didn't look as small as Tinkerbell or have wings.

"Max," I whispered, "they keep thinking about vampires, at least Emmett does. Alice is reciting something in —" I listened again "—I think it's Greek, and Edward's mind is...there are a lot of voices in Edward's mind."

"Thanks, Sweetie." I think that I may be Max's favorite member of the flock.

"No, I do not!" he yelled up to us. Don't what?

"Edward, I still can't see anything!" Alice complained. _You promised,_ she thought. She had a wind chime-like voice.

"Alice, I never promised anything," he said, annoyed still. "I said maybe you'll be able to see better." Don't know what that conversation was about.

"Edward, do not answer whatever she just thought!" she hissed. Thought? Is he like me?

_Thought? What is he, some sort of mind reader? _I heard Max think.

"I think so," I said as quietly as I could.

At the same time, Edward said, "Yes. I assume that the one you call Angel is as well?"

_I'm not answering, _Max thought.

_Aw man! He found out!_ thought Iggy at the same time.

"Thank you, Iggy."

"Hey, no picking thoughts out of my brain!" exclaimed Iggy.

Gazzy and Fang were probably doing a good job not thinking about the secret.

"Nudge is as bad as Alice. She wants to go shopping apparently. She's already identified the designers of our clothes."

"Yay!" Alice was hopping up and down and clapping. "I get a new shopping buddy!"

"Alice, you still can't see," Edward reminded her, instantaneously making her pout.

"Wait, you're blind too?" Iggy asked, looking towards Alice with his unseeing eyes.

"Not the way you are," she mumbled.

Edward turned to us. "So I guess this is going to be a one-sided conversation?" he asked.

"Can we trust you? Can we be sure that you're not Erasers?" asked Max.

"What's an Eraser? From the way you talk about it, I'm guessing that it's not good."

"It's true, Max. They have no idea what Erasers are. And I think we can trust them. They have a big secret that they've been keeping too," I said. "I mean, they want and need to tell someone."

"Okay then. Prepare yourselves. Guys, lets get down there." We all started down toward the ground, wings out but careful. Iggy crashed a couple of times, even though Max tried to get him not to. She was shouting things like "Ig, to the left!" which helped a bit.

Why was Iggy crashing? Well, he's blind.

"Wow!" said Emmett. "You guys can fly?" The others showed no emotion at all,

"Yeah," Max said. "Now spill. What's the deal with you guys? What are you?" she asked, then added, "And why was Emmett the only one who was surprised by our flying?"

"Okay. I'll answer the last question first. Emmett's the only one who is surprised because Alice is a psychic and I was there when she had the vision." Oh. That's why.

"Edward! Why do I see you actually telling them?" asked Alice.

"Alice, they can keep the secret. They've kept theirs since birth," he answered. He turned back to us, then he looked back at her. "Wait, you can see again?"

"Apparently when we met them, it cleared up my vision a bit, now it's crystal clear."

"Aw man! Now I'm the only blind one again," Iggy whined.

"Ig, be quiet!" Max said.

He didn't like it, but he did what Max told him to.

Max turned back to Edward. "Now, what is your big secret that the psychic doesn't want to trust us with?"

"We should go back to our house to explain this. I'm sure you could use some new clothes and food Esme would love to meet you. And of course, Carlisle would like to learn all about you, he's a doctor," he explained.

"Okay," Max said, even though she really thought it was a bad idea.

We began heading directly southwest.

"Is it just a straight line to your house, because I really would prefer to run." said Max.

"Yes," Edward said. "Do you think you can keep up?" he challenged. "No flying," he added. Awww. Where's the fun in having wings if you can't fly at high speed when racing?

"I think we can keep up," she said, smiling. "Right guys?" We all nodded, even if these guys were track stars, we could sprint at a hundred twenty miles per hour.

"Okay, line up. On the count of three," Max said. We nodded. In flock speak, that means the count of one. "One!" she said.

We started sprinting. The Cullens looked surprised, wondering why we hadn't waited until three. Then they started running. They caught up easily. Max went faster, so we did, even though this was as fast as we normally go. We got ahead of Emmett and Alice, but Edward was still out front. Max went even faster, though the rest of us didn't, we couldn't. Eventually, we saw a big white house in a large clearing. There was a giant river in the way. I added a little speed and barely made the jump without help from my wings.

Edward and Max had already made it. Max had won. They were talking about how we had gone on the count of one — as usual — and how fast Max was.

None of us were breathing that hard actually, despite our insanely fast speed.

We reached them soon.

"Shall we?" asked Edward.

"Okay," Max said as she stood up straight. "Come on, guys."

Edward held the door for everyone — except Max. She didn't trust him, still.

I saw a blonde girl yelling at Emmett as soon as he walked in. She was upset about how he had ruined the shirt that she had given him. He was really sorry and all.

"Rose, it was an accident! You know how I am after —," he said. The girl clapped a hand over his mouth before he could say more. What was he going to say? I tried listening for what he had been saying, but got nothing interesting — he was trying to keep his mind on boring stuff, realizing what was happening.

Max tapped our hands, letting us know that we needed to memorize escape routes, just in case. We nodded, knowing exactly what to do.

Rosalie — as I heard her name was — turned to glare at Edward. "Edward, why did you bring a bunch of humans here?" Aw. I love that she actually thinks we're human.

"They're not exactly human Rosalie, do you hear their heartbeats? Much faster than that of a human. They also smell different." What does he mean by that? I mean — I know we're mutant bird-kids, but how could they tell that we smell different from humans, even I don't smell a difference.

"Okay," said Max. "You guys have some serious explaining to do. We showed you our secret, now you tell us yours."

"Let me introduce you to the rest of my family and tell them what we know about you first." He turned to the rest of the people in the room. "These are: Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, and Rosalie," he said pointing first to the older looking blond guy, then the caramel haired woman, the other blond guy who looked younger, and finally the tall, blond girl. "Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rose, these are: Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman or Gazzy, and Angel," he said pointing at us as he said our names.

"Oh, dear! You look half starved! I'll get you something to eat. Anything in particular?" asked Esme. She seemed like a nice person to have for a mom; she was sweet, caring, all the things you wanted in a mom. She kind of reminded me of Mary Poppins "practically perfect in every way". I saw Gazzy opening his mouth to ask for something, but he immediately closed it when Max shot him that look that says _don't even think about it_. She was right. These people were offering us food and stuff, we shoudn't ask for more.

"Thank you, Esme. You know, that isn't really necessary though. We ate more than usual on the way over here." Yeah. When you live like we have for four years, you really can't get much to eat so you just take what you're given. Sometimes, we even have to eat food from the dumpsters.

"It's no trouble, Max. I enjoy cooking. It gives me something to do. There's no reason for me to cook around here. Oh, Alice, do you think you could help them find some new clothes? They look as if they've been living on the streets. No offense."

"None taken, we kind of do, which has to do with our secret which brings us back to you," Max said. Well, we lived in the wild without much access to new clothes.

"First you guys need some new clothes. Edward will tell the rest about your secret." Alice was sort of bossy, like Max when she's trying to be mom-like. "Come _on_," she complained. She tugged on Max's arm and tried to drag her upstairs, Max normally doesn't give in, so I was surprised when she ran up to Alice's room.

The rest of us followed her. Max looked kind of sick — maybe it was just that she didn't want to wear anything _like_ what Alice was wearing. I wouldn't have been surprised.

"Okay, we don't have much time, so you won't be able to play fashion models, I'll just use my vision to see what looks best." Max opened her mouth to say something, but Alice interrupted her. "And you _will_ wear what I pick out." Even if I couldn't read minds, I would have been able to figure out what Max was thinking, she had her "I'm really mad, but not killing an Eraser mad" face. "Max, I think you're going to need one of Rose's outfits. You're kind of taller than I expected." Max seemed a bit happier. I don't think she would have been able to fit in one of Alice's dresses — or any of her outfits. "No, absolutely not." Max was probably going to try to convince Alice to let her wear a pair of sweatpants or something.

"You'll get used to her," Edward called from downstairs.

"I don't mean to break up this little conversation, but if you haven't noticed, these are all _girls'_ clothes. I'm a _guy_. I can't wear girls' clothes." Fang was whining; it was so... un-Fang-like. Fang doesn't whine.

"Oh, be quiet. Jasper's closet is over there. You'll be able to find something in there. I don't think he'll mind... no, you're okay. Although he will mind going shopping again. You'd think he'd be used to it after —. Oops, Edward really doesn't want me to spill the beans, he'd be angrier than ever before. No one should know about us, if someone found out, the Volturi would burn us and definitely kill them. Unless they're useful to them..." She started mumbling to herself. She was acting really worried; I tried to read her mind, but she was translating something into Italian — at least, I _think_ it was Italian.

"Alice, can we just get the clothes and get downstairs?" Max was really angry and just wanted to find out their secret — even if it meant she had to wear a dress.

"Ugh! Fine! Nudge, Angel, you guys can wear these. You can come with us and change in Rose's room." Alice shoved a sky blue dress at Nudge — who was squealing and jumping over its beauty — and she gave me a sea blue colored dress. It matched my eyes, but I didn't really care — I was just as anxious as Max. I didn't trust these people, even if they gave us food and clothes — they were even going through the trouble of not thinking about their secret. "Fang, Iggy, I already have your outfits picked out. Iggy, wear a tan t-shirt and khaki's. Fang, you should wear a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans and help Iggy find his clothes. Gazzy — we don't exactly have something small enough for you, so your clothes will be a bit baggy — a gray t-shirt and some jeans will be fine. Come on, Max, Angel, Nudge." As Nudge and I followed, I wondered how Fang would look in something other than black; he didn't protest though.

"Okay, I think turquoise will look nice on you... Yep turquoise is good. Oh my gosh! I forgot to get everybody the others their shoes. Max, wear the black sandals with the heels. Okay, you can handle yourself. I'll go get the shoes."

Alice brought our shoes and the only reason we made it down before Max was that she was having a much harder time getting the silly shoes on.

Secret time—at least once Max got down.

**Edward's POV**

WE WERE HUNTING — NOT ALL OF US, JUST ALICE, EMMETT AND ME. DON'T ASK ME WHY, BUT IT MAY HAVE ask me why, but it may have something to do with Jasper's wanting to push his limits and see how long he could go without any blood. Carlisle, Rosalie, and Esme were staying at the house with him to keep him in check.

Anyway, we were hunting — Emmett had already caught a bear while Alice and I looked for something else's blood — when I heard a noise above us. I heard some new thoughts. More... children? What's even weirder was that the thoughts were coming from above us — close enough that I could hear them, so it wasn't from a plane.

_What's that sound? It sounds like a bunch of Erasers._ I heard the voice with those thoughts. "Guys, we'll go down a bit, but keep your guard up," it ordered.

The people with the thoughts got closer to us. "That's weird. All I can hear in their thoughts is 'Blood, blood, blood, blood!'" said another voice, this one more like that of a younger girl.

They knew too much. "Em, stop," I said. He listened. "Who's there?" I asked the people above us.

_Edward, is it _them_?_ Asked Alice.

"Uh, oh. Let's go," the first voice whispered.

"I think it is," I said, nodding at Alice. "Don't try whispering, I can still hear you. How are you up that high in the trees anyway?" I said to the voice. If they had heard us, they probably knew something at least. Besides, I wanted to get to know these winged kids.

"Okay, guys, let's go land in the trees and see this guy. Keep your guard up, he might be an Eraser." _Yep, Eraser-y voice? Check. Tearing sound like a helpless little animal being eaten? Check. Erasers complete with supersonic hearing; must be a new version._ What the heck were Erasers?

"Edward, what are they talking about 'Erasers'?" Emmett asked.

"No clue," I whispered. "Now be quiet please."

_So the voice has a name_, thought the girl — the older one.

"Yes, I have a name!" I shouted. Way to go there Edward, blowing cover already. Oh well, they can keep the secret.

"How did you know what I was thinking?" she asked, just as angrily.

_Edward! Can we just get them? I really hope they don't find out we're va__ —. AHHH! Edward, don't kill me!_ He thought as I turned on him to keep him quiet. He may be stronger than me, but he had yet to beat me in a wrestling match.

Alice was reciting the pledge of allegiance in Greek, probably in case they had a mind reader as well.

They came down, just low enough that we could see them. They had probably landed in the top branches and climbed down a few so that they could see us.

There were three girls. The tallest one had brown hair and looked kind of twitchy. The next was a slightly shorter black girl. The smallest was blond haired and looked similar to the youngest of the three boys. The other two boys were opposite-looking. One had dark hair and skin, the other was really pale — not as pale as us of course, but still pale.

"Emmett, don't try to attack them. They don't mean to hurt us unless we hurt them. They're actually kind of scared of us. I'm sorry," I said as I addressed the tall girl, it was obvious that she was the leader. "Emmett is kind of... excitable when he thinks there may be a fight. I feel it's only right to introduce us properly. I'm Edward, this is Emmett, and the annoying pixie is Alice," I said, gesturing to each of us in turn and receiving an elbow from Alice. Though it may have broken the bones of a human, it didn't even hurt me.

"Max," the young girl whispered, "they keep thinking about vampires, at least Emmett does." He was so going to pay for that, he really needs to learn to control his thoughts. "Alice is reciting something in — I think it's Greek, and Edward's mind is...there are a lot of voices in Edward's mind." Uh-oh. That little girl _was_ a mind reader. Good shielding Alice.

"Thanks, sweetie," she said. _Maybe Edward has multiple personality disorder._

"No, I do not!" I yelled. I just kept getting worse and worse.

_Edward! Keep quiet._

"Edward, I still can't see anything!" Alice complained. _You promised._

"Alice, I never promised anything," I said, I was being an idiot which annoyed me. "I said _maybe_ you'll be able to see better." What is with these psychic divas?

_What does she mean by that? Is she blind?_

"Edward, do not answer whatever she just thought!" Alice hissed. _Thought?_ _What is he, some sort of mind reader?_

"I think so," said the little girl called Angel.

Just as I said, "Yes. I assume that the one you call Angel is as well?"

_I'm not answering,_ Max thought in a sing-song voice.

_Aw man! He found out!_ thought the tall, pale guy — Iggy — at the same time.

"Thank you, Iggy," I said. Though I normally wouldn't be acting like this, I really needed to learn as much as I could about them.

"Hey, no picking thoughts out of my brain!" he exclaimed.

The others were keeping their minds in check. The darker one's — Fang's — mind was nearly as blank as his expressionless face.

_What the heck is Nudge thinking about? _ This was the thought that filtered from Max's mind into mine. I took it that Nudge was the younger dark-skinned girl.

"Nudge is as bad as Alice. She wants to go shopping apparently. She's already identified the designers of our clothes." It was surprising; for someone who grew up — from as far as I could see — isolated in the mountains, she sure knew a lot about modern fashion.

"Yay! I get a new shopping buddy!" She was acting as much like herself as she could, bouncing around and making a big deal.

"Alice, you still can't see," I reminded her. If she got her hopes up and then they ran when we told them our secret, she would be let down that she couldn't go shopping with Nudge.

"Wait, you're blind too?" Iggy asked, looking towards Alice. Not like he was; this whole not being able to see the future really had her frustrated. I decided to take a peek inside her mind. It was clearer, but still unintelligible. Good, she wouldn't see that I was going to tell until I did it.

"Not the way you are," she grumbled.

I turned to Max and the ones she considered her family. "So I guess this is going to be a one-sided conversation?"

"Can we trust you? Can we be sure that you're not Erasers?" Seriously what the heck are these Eraser things?

"What's an Eraser? From the way you talk about it, I'm guessing that it's not good." A flash of fur, long fangs, lots of blood. I think that's what an Eraser is.

"It's true, Max. They have no idea what Erasers are. And I think we can trust them. They have a big secret that they've been keeping too," said Angel. Yeah, the rest have no clue.

"Okay then. Prepare yourselves. Guys, lets get down there." They spread open their wings—even Angel's were a surprising 8 feet across — and wowed us with their flying, even though Iggy crashed a couple of times. We ran over to where they had landed.

"Wow!" said Emmett as soon as we got to them. "You guys can fly?" Alice and I were unsurprised; we had both seen it in her vision.

"Yeah. Now spill. What's the deal with you guys? What are you?" Max asked, then tacked on, "And why was Emmett the only one who was surprised by our flying?" Well, now it's time to confess, but we should take her back to the house to tell her the secret.

"Okay. I'll answer the last question first. Emmett's the only one who is surprised because Alice is a psychic and I was there when she had the vision," I said.

"Edward! Why do I see you actually telling them?" asked Alice.

"Alice, they can keep the secret. They've kept theirs since birth," I answered. Oops. I had missed that she saw that. Had her visions really cleared up that quickly? "Wait, you can see again?"

"Apparently when we met them, it cleared up my visions a bit, now it's crystal clear."

"Aw man! Now I'm the only blind one again," Iggy whined.

"Ig, be quiet!" Max snapped.

He pouted sulkily.

She turned to me. "Now, what is your big secret that the psychic doesn't want to trust us with?"

"We should go back to our house to explain this. I'm sure you could use some new clothes and food Esme would love to meet you. And of course, Carlisle would like to learn all about you, he's a doctor," I explained.

"Okay." Max was hesitant as she said this. What would make her that way? Could she really think we were Erasers — whatever those were — when _their_ mind reader had said we didn't know what Erasers were?

We started for the house.

"Is it just a straight line to your house? Because I really would prefer to run," Max asked.

"Yes. Do you think you can keep up?" I challenged. "No flying," I added. I didn't care how fast they could fly, if they were stuck on the ground, they would be far behind us.

"I think we can keep up." She grinned. "Right guys?" The flock nodded to her, a couple of them were wearing grins of their own.

"Okay, line up. On the count of three." We lined up and the flock nodded for some reason. "One!" she shouted

They took off; they hadn't even gotten to two yet! Why did they take off so suddenly? We quickly began running towards them. We caught up easily; I overtook them all, being the fastest runner in my family. They went faster, getting ahead of Emmett and Alice, but still behind me. Max took note of this and went even faster, though the others couldn't keep up with her.

She reached the house ahead of me — just by a split second, but ahead nonetheless.

I ran up to her. "Didn't you say the count of three?" I asked. I wasn't breathing hard and, surprisingly, nor was she.

"Yeah. In flock speak, that always means count of one." she explained. I'll have to remember that for the next time we raced, Emmett would want a rematch.

"Well, you were pretty fast out there. Faster than me — which is really saying something."

"Thanks," she said.

The others caught up to us. No one was breathing hard — my family didn't need to breathe at all and the flock just wasn't. _We were designed to breathe in thin air, _I heard from Max's mind. Well that explains it — wait, designed? We needed to know more.

"Shall we?" I asked.

"Okay," Max said. "Come on, guys."

I held the door for everyone except Max. She still didn't trust that I wouldn't hurt her or the flock — rightly so, though she didn't know why yet. She didn't even budge until I had gone in. What had happened to chivalry? Couldn't a gentleman still hold the door open for ladies — or kids for this matter.

Rosalie was yelling at Emmett for ruining the shirt that she had bought for him. She was vain, too vain.

"Rose, it was an accident! You know how I am after —." Thankfully Rose cut him off then. That was close. Without thinking, I nodded my head in response to Max's question of whether or not that was related to our secret.

Rose turned her glare toward me. "Edward, why did you bring a bunch of humans here?" she hissed.

"They're not exactly human Rosalie, do you hear their heartbeats? Much faster than that of a human. They also smell different."' There was quite a difference between the heartbeats of the flock and those of humans, Carlisle would know. And Rosalie, knowing as much as she did about medicine would know as well.

"Okay. You guys have some serious explaining to do. We showed you our secret, now you tell us yours," Max said, growing impatient.

"Let me introduce you to the rest of my family and tell them what we know about you first," I said, facing my family. "These are: Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, and Rosalie," I gestured to each in turn. "Carlisle, Esme, Jasper, Rose, these are: Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman or Gazzy, and Angel," I said, doing the same for the flock.

"Oh, dear! You look half starved! I'll get you something to eat. Anything in particular?" asked Esme. She was a terrific mother, even if all of us were teenagers and didn't need mothering since we were really anywhere from seventy-five to around one hundred fifteen years old. Gazzy opened his mouth to ask for something, but Max shot him a look and he immediately closed it.

"Thank you, Esme. You know, that isn't really necessary though. We ate more than usual on the way over here," she said.

"It's no trouble, Max. I enjoy cooking. It gives me something to do. There's no reason for me to cook around here. Oh, Alice, do you think you could help them find some new clothes? They look as if they've been living on the streets. No offense." That was Esme, always considerate of others.

"None taken, we kind of do, which has to do with our secret which brings us back to you," Max said.

"First you guys need some new clothes. Edward will tell the rest about your secret," Alice said. _She _is_ an annoying pixie,_ Max thought. I smirked, she had no idea how bad Alice could be when she was really excited about something. "Come _on_," she whined.

They ran up to Alice's room. I told Carlisle, Esme, Rose, Jasper and Emmett about Alice's vision. I had gathered a few flashes of memory from them. A sterile, white room, lots of test tubes, row upon row of dog crates, many people in white lab coats, and — curiously — a little boy following them around all day. Then happier times: one of the people in a lab coat taking them outside, letting them escape, the little boy looked forlorn and abandoned — ahh, the guy in the lab coat was the little boy's father — the flock and the guy escaping from flashes of dark brown fur, picking strawberries.

_Dang pixie,_ I heard from upstairs. Max thinking about Alice not letting her wear sweatpants or something.

"You'll get used to her," I called.

I continued telling my family what I had found until the flock came down—all but Max that is.

The Gasman's clothes were baggy, and Fang looked weird in the paler clothes that we wear to make it seem like we ourselves have a darker coloration.

Max wobbled her way down wearing a pair of high-heeled shoes a few minutes later.

Please don't let this go too badly.


	3. Secrets

2. SECRETS

**Max's POV**

EVERYONE LOOKED NORMAL — EXCEPT WITH BETTER CLOTHES. THEY ALL looked as relaxed as I felt. The flock looked good in their new clothes which would hopefully last us awhile. Fang looked...stunning — and stunned. His mouth was slightly open and he was staring at me. He noticed me looking at him and closed his mouth and turned away. Edward looked disgusted. Apparently, he hadn't liked what was going through someone's — probably Fang's — mind.

"Oh, good. You're finally down here, Max. I have some chicken and baked potatoes made up. Would you like one?" Esme would be an awesome mom. I wish I even knew where my parents had lived. The only adults that have ever been in my life have been the scientists at the School and Jeb, who helped us escape and then abandoned us. I shuddered thinking about them and pushed all those thoughts from my mind. Focus on staying safe and living in the present.

"Of course, Esme. I really appreciate your hospitality. I wish I had a mother like you." That was true, although I really wanted to hear about their secret.

"Okay, if you're going to be that impatient, I may as well start now. Or would you prefer to get your food first?" Edward was being pretty impolite.

"Food of course. It looks so delicious." The rest of the flock had food and it _did_ look good. They weren't eating it yet. I felt so proud, my heart almost burst out of my chest. They practically starved and they still wouldn't eat anything that was made by people that we don't know. Especially those who are extremely secretive. Esme got me a potato and some chicken. I took a cautious bite of chicken. It tasted good—better than good, it was terrific. The flock took the fact that I didn't collapse in five seconds as a good sign and began to dig in. Once we started eating, Edward began to talk.

"Okay, so can you guys first tell us what you heard?"

"I heard lots of tearing below us while we were flying and then we came closer. Angel said that all she heard in your minds was 'Blood, blood, blood, blood!'. Then you heard us when we came down. I assume you already told your family all of this." He nodded. "Okay, well that's all." I sat back, having already finished my food, and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Oh. Well, do you have any guesses as to what we might be?"

I did. One word came to mind when I thought of blood. Erasers, but they couldn't be Erasers; they had no idea what Erasers were. Then I really thought.

I got another headache — though I thought I had made it clear to the Voice not to do that. _Think hard, Max. Remember your time with Jeb,_ it said. I tried.

Jeb had been reading a book once, Dracula. It was about a vampire. I had asked him what a vampire was and he said it was a creature that survived on human blood; this had to be what it meant. "Vampire," I whispered.

In that moment, I knew it was true — I couldn't picture motherly Esme drinking someone's blood, though, or tiny Alice.

"We don't feed on humans. We drink animal blood. It doesn't taste as good, but it keeps us satisfied." Oh.

"Oh. My. GOD! You guys are vampires? Like Dracula and stuff? Do you burn in the sun? Why didn't anyone see any coffins while were in here?" Iggy was firing off questions like an idiot.

"Iggy!" the flock hissed. "Be quiet!"

He looked towards the floor. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"It's okay Iggy. We haven't told anyone before, but I guess if we ever have to, we'll know what to expect. I guess that answers your first two questions. And to answer the others: no, we don't burn in the sun and we don't have coffins because we don't sleep."

"Then what are the —. _Oh_." Wow, Iggy is...seriously sick. Can we say 'sexist pig'? I guess Edward agreed, judging by the look on his face. Then it changed.

"How did you see the beds?" He was incredulous.

"Fang and Gazzy described the house while we were changing." Oh. I was really hoping he had been able to see _something_. That would have made anyone happy — I mean, wouldn't it be awesome for the blind kid to see?

Okay. Now, why aren't we running? Is it just because they gave us awesome food — or do we really feel safe? I glanced at Fang; he seemed just as nervous as me. "Haven't you ever...made mistakes?"

"Some of us have...some of us haven't." He grimaced in disgust. "Carlisle has never made a mistake, although I had a...darker time at one point. Poor Jasper thought that creating vampires and killing them once they no longer had newborn strength was normal." He looked so sorry for Jasper — who seemed to be having the most trouble here.

"There's no reason for you guys to be so nervous. I may be new to the vegetarian diet but I'm doing very well, and Edward's 'darker time' was decades ago. Besides, he never killed innocent people," Jasper assured me. He had a soft Southern accent and I felt a wave of calm wash over me when he spoke. Wait — why am I suddenly calm? I was panicking not two seconds ago. I should be panicking now _because_ I can't panic. I looked at Edward who was smirking.

"I forgot to mention that Jasper is an empath; he can feel and manipulate emotions." Oh. That explains a lot.

"How could you forget? You're a vampire," Alice teased.

Carlisle, I noticed, was bouncy as a kid on Christmas morning. He was extremely excited to meet us — or study us.

"Yes, Carlisle really wanted something new to study, and you're new." At this, Carlisle looked ashamed about thinking of us as some sort of science project. Lab coats — dog crates — needles — creepy scientists messing with our blood. These pictures ran through my mind when I thought of someone studying me. Edward looked confused as he saw this but the flock and I all shuddered at that thought.

"I guess we should explain how we got our wings. We were born as regular kids — we think, we might have been test tube babies — but the whitecoats grafted bird genes into us and _bam_! Wings, fast heartbeat, hollow bones, all ours. Well, okay, it took a little time, but the whitecoats kept track of us until about four years five years ago when Jeb Batchelder managed to get us out of the School somehow. Then, about a year after that, he disappeared and we've been on our own since then," I explained.

"Interesting. And what brought you here?" asked Carlisle.

"I got a really bad headache — like my head was exploding — and I heard a voice. It said that someone here would need my help soon. Then we were searching for a house and heard the ripping and tearing. Then we met Edward, Emmett, and Alice and I guess they already explained what happened after that," I concluded. Carlisle nodded.

"You are plenty welcome to stay here, dears," Esme said.

"Thank you, Esme, but we'll only stay if everyone here is in agreement."

All the vampires — surprisingly including Rosalie — agreed that we may stay as long as we needed.

"Thanks, everybody. We're all glad that you're willing to share your home with us. Right guys?" The flock nodded in agreement.

I yawned. Esme and Alice led us to two different rooms. Nudge, Angel and I would sleep in Alice and Jasper's room. Fang, Iggy, and the Gasman would sleep in Carlisle and Esme's room. Man was I glad that these people didn't need sleep.

Oh, right, we have to go to school tomorrow.

Edward saw my discomfort at this thought and offered for us to go to school with them since they were in the same school as most of us. The Gasman and Angel had each other and we had the Cullens. So we would sit with them at lunch. Yeah, that made me feel _so _much better — actually, it did. At least we'll have someone to eat with. Well, we'll eat, they'll just sit there.

Tomorrow, we're starting school as junior's; surprisingly, we were mature-looking enough to pass as being older than we were. Fang, Iggy and I were juniors, Nudge was a freshman and Angel and Gazzy were playing fourth-graders. We could pull off the looks, but we're definitely not smart enough to last a week of this. Or more.

**Edward's POV**

MAX LOOKED SUSPICIOUS AND ON EDGE, WHICH WAS PRETTY MUCH THE ONLY WAY I'D EVER SEEN HER. AND THE rest of the flock. They looked better in their new clothes. Max was hoping that the clothes would last them awhile. Which they wouldn't. Alice would have them thrown out by tomorrow, as she did all of our clothes. She only let us wear them once; the _weekly_ shopping trips were annoying after a few decades. Fang was staring gap-mouthed at Max in the dress she had borrowed from Rosalie. I didn't like the way he was thinking about her so I attempted to tune him out. I already thought of Max as my little sister — although I hadn't know her long — and I wouldn't like anyone thinking about my sister that way—and it was especially odd for it to be Fang thinking of her that way because she thought of him as her brother. Angel didn't know the advantage she had; she could actually choose not to listen to people's thoughts, unlike me, sure I could tune them out, but that was not nearly as effective.

"Oh, good. You're finally down here, Max. I have some chicken and baked potatoes made up. Would you like one?" Esme, being Esme, was providing food and shelter for six strange kids who wanted to know our secret. I couldn't remember my real mother, but if I could, I would have hoped she was as great as Esme.

"Of course, Esme. I really appreciate your hospitality. I wish I had a mother like you," Max said. She seemed like she had never had any parents at all. Regardless, she was quite anxious to hear our secret.

"Okay, if you're going to be that impatient, I may as well start now. Or would you prefer to get your food first?" I asked. Alice was really concerned that I wasn't acting like myself.

"Food of course. It looks so delicious." Max felt proud as she looked around and saw that the flock hadn't yet taken a bite, despite the fact that they were all starving. She hesitantly took a bite of her chicken. After a few seconds, the flock began eating, obviously enjoying Esme's cooking.

Now that they seemed ready, I supposed I should begin.

"Okay, so can you guys first tell us what you heard?" I asked, might as well find out what they know first before giving any outright information.

"I heard lots of tearing below us while we were flying and then we came closer. Angel said that all she heard in your minds was 'Blood, blood, blood, blood!'. Then you heard us when we came down. I assume you already told your family all of this." I confirmed her suspicions. "Okay, well that's all." She had already finished her food so she sat back and crossed her arms, waiting for me to start.

"Oh. Well, do you have any guesses as to what we might be?"

She had one guess at first: Erasers. I saw another flash of fur and fangs and heard screaming in her mind. Then she realized that we couldn't be Erasers because we didn't know what Erasers were.

She thought back even harder. I saw a man — the same man that had been with them when they escaped wherever they had been — reading a book. The book was Dracula. She had asked him what it was about and he told her about vampires — at least that we lived off human blood.

She whispered one solitary word. "Vampire," she said.

She knew it was true then. She tried to picture Esme or Alice that way, but couldn't.

"We don't feed on humans. We drink animal blood. It doesn't taste as good, but it keeps us satisfied," I explained.

"Oh. My. GOD! You guys are vampires? Like Dracula and stuff? Do you burn in the sun? Why didn't anyone see any coffins while were in here?" Iggy was busy asking questions, acting idiotic to the flock I guess.

"Iggy!" they all hissed at the same time. "Be quiet!"

He turned his sightless eyes towards the floor. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"It's okay Iggy. We haven't told anyone before, but I guess if we ever have to, we'll know what to expect. I guess that answers your first two questions. And to answer the others: no, we don't burn in the sun and we don't have coffins because we don't sleep."

"Then what are the —. _Oh_."_ Can we say "sexist pig"?_ I heard from Max. I wholeheartedly agreed with her. Seeing the pictures in Iggy's mind really ticked me off. Then I realized something. He knew there were beds. Had he seen them?

"How did you see the beds?" I asked.

"Fang and Gazzy described the house while we were changing." Oh. That was sad. It would've been nice if he could see them.

Max was getting confused as she glanced at the others, seeing how they felt. Fang was as nervous as she, the others... not so much.

"Haven't you ever...made mistakes?" she asked hesitantly.

"Some of us have...some of us haven't." I grimaced as I remembered my dark past. Remembering the sight of those innocents — okay, not so innocents — dying at my...teeth nearly made me cringe. I tried explaining to them.

"Carlisle has never made a mistake, although I had a...darker time at one point. Poor Jasper thought that creating vampires and killing them once they no longer had newborn strength was normal." Jasper remembered his past as well. As far back as his time with Maria; the time when he still lived in the South and helped her create a newborn army.

"There's no reason for you guys to be so nervous. I may be new to the vegetarian diet but I'm doing very well, and Edward's 'darker time' was decades ago. Besides, he never killed innocent people," Jasper said, using his ability to feel the emotions of those around him; he was an empath. Max wondered why she was no longer panicking. And tried to panic more.

"I forgot to mention that Jasper is an empath; he can feel and manipulate emotions."

"How could you forget? You're a vampire," Alice teased.

Max noticed how anxious Carlisle was to learn about them.

"Yes, Carlisle really wanted something new to study, and you're new." Carlisle seemed bashful when I said this. Why? After all, he _was _a three hundred-year-old doctor, he seemed a bit tired of the same old same old.

I saw a flash of pictures going through the flock's mind. All the same pictures, just a different order. Lab coats — dog crates — needles — scientists messing with their blood. They all shuddered. I apparently looked confused so Max explained the pictures.

"I guess we should explain how we got our wings. We were born as regular kids — we think, we may have been test tube babies — but the whitecoats grafted bird genes into us and _bam_! Wings, fast heartbeat, hollow bones, all ours. Well, okay, it took a little time, but the whitecoats kept track of us until about four years ago when Jeb Batchelder managed to get us out of the School somehow. Then, about two years after that, he disappeared and we've been on our own for the two years since then."

"Interesting. And what brought you here?" asked Carlisle.

"I got a really bad headache — like my head was exploding — and I heard a voice. It said that someone here would need my help soon. Then we were searching for a house and heard the ripping and tearing. Then we met Edward, Emmett, and Alice and I guess they already explained what happened after that," she concluded. Carlisle nodded, showing his attentiveness.

"You are plenty welcome to stay here, dears," Esme said, again, being Esme.

"Thank you, Esme, but we'll only stay if everyone here is in agreement."

We all agreed that they could stay — though it surprised me that Rose would.

"Thanks, everybody. We're all glad that you're willing to share your home with us. Right guys?" They nodded.

Alice led the girls to hers and Jasper's room as Esme led the boys to hers and Carlisle's room. I would have offered my room, but there was no bed in it since I had no need for one, just my couch which wouldn't be comfortable.

Max seemed discomforted by the fact that she and her family were going to school tomorrow, so I offered for us to go with them.

She nearly mental laughed at the fact that they were probably going to be sitting in the cafeteria at lunch, wolfing down our food as well as theirs while we just sat there.

Though I'm sure that Alice and Jasper wouldn't have minded not having their room originally, I was surprised at the fact that Alice seemed happy. Until I found out why. Yes, the girls were going to drag us shopping because it was only five in the afternoon — I guess flying really takes it out of you if the flock was willing to crash this early. We were going to buy entirely new wardrobes for all of them and we were buying them a car. I guess you can imagine how well that went over with us guys. That's right not well — at least for the clothing. It was the car they said were dragging us along for, although I'm sure Rosalie could manage — she knew cars as well as any guy I had ever met. I suspected that they were really using it as a ploy to get some new clothes for us as well.

Sure enough I was right.

**Bella's POV**

I WAS VERY WORRIED ABOUT MY FIRST DAY AT FORKS HIGH SCHOOL. THEY ONLY HAD A TOTAL OF THREE hundred fifty-seven — I mean fifty-eight — students! Way smaller than in Phoenix.

I've never even fit in — anywhere. As a girl from Phoenix, I _should_ be athletic, blond, tan, probably a volleyball player or something.

I _am_ pale-skinned, brown-haired, brown-eyed, and completely un-athletic. If you put me anywhere near a volleyball court, or any place where you need some kind of coordination, you'd better stand back and watch out. There is no way that anything good could come of me being near anything that can hurt people. I'm a natural klutz.

I went to put necessities in the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror, I looked very sallow and unhealthy. Maybe it's just the light. My skin could be pretty — or look ugly and translucent — depending on the lighting.

Who am I kidding, I don't fit in at all — not just physically. I just don't relate well to people my age. Not even my mother — my best friend on the planet — could relate to me. I cried myself to sleep that night as I dreamed about the strange girl, who she was, how she got like that...


	4. First Day

3. FIRST DAY

**Edward's POV**

I WAS GLAD I COULDN'T SLEEP, BUT AT THE SAME TIME, I WASN'T. ALL THOUGHTS WERE ON THE NEW ARRIVALS AT the school. I knew about Fang, Iggy, Max, and Nudge — they were all using pseudonyms except for Max, Fang was Nick, Iggy was Jeff, and Nudge was Krystal —, but there was another new girl. She was Isabella — Bella, as she corrected everyone — Swan, the only daughter of the town police chief. She didn't seem to enjoy the attention.

The river of voices in my head was so annoying. All the guys were crazy about Bella and Max just because they were something new, and I was so annoyed with all the girls fawning over Fang. It sounded like Max was too. She didn't even realize it.

Now, I was trying to block their thoughts as well as my family's, but still, I knew.

Max was primarily worrying about the younger members of the flock who were in the Forks Elementary School — Angel and the Gasman — they also had pseudonyms, Angel called herself Ariel and the Gasman was Zephyr. Honestly, I was surprised to find that Forks _had_ an elementary school. Nudge was portraying a freshman in high school with us. Max was also in red alert mode worrying about Erasers — half-wolf, half-human mutants. Her mind is a deep lake, full of secretive shadows.

Fang was severely paranoid. He obviously didn't like being in such a small, crowded area. Despite that fact, he was studying a few girls in there. Wow, Max is right — he's...a sexist pig — to use her very words. He was subconsciously comparing every single one of them to Max though. None of them seemed to be good enough for him. I take back the "sexist pig" comment. His mind seems shallow, but it is truly very deep.

Iggy is just wondering what's going on. Poor guy. It's so sad what happened to him. It seems that the scientists that had grafted bird DNA into them had also tried to improve his night vision and it failed miserably, leaving him blind. At least he has such good hearing that he doesn't have much problem unless he's in a _really _big crowd. His mind is very similar to Fang's, although it's different in the fact that it really _is_ shallow in some places and deep in others.

Nudge was sitting with us and thinking about finding places to go shopping, clothes... Alice kind of stuff. I swear, they could be sisters.

Rosalie was thinking about herself as usual. She had caught sight of her reflection in a window and was debating her perfection. Her mind is a shallow pool with few surprises.

Emmett was frustrated that he had lost a wrestling match to Jasper last night while the flock was sleeping. Honestly, I'm surprised that none of them woke up. It never felt wrong reading Emmett's mind because everything he thought was either said aloud at some point or put into action. Emmett's mind was like a crystal clear lake without any shadows.

Jasper was...suffering. Why does he push himself so far? I had to suppress a sigh.

_Edward, _Alice called in her mind; she had my complete attention.

I was glad that my name had fallen out of style — my head always used to turn when anyone ever thought of any Edward.

Now, though, I didn't turn my head. Alice and I were used to these private conversations, mostly about Jasper when he pushed himself this far.

_How is he doing?_

I frowned a bit. It wouldn't alert the others of anything and none of the flock was looking my way at the time, they were too busy eating disgusting human food.

_Will there be any danger soon?_ She asked, still watching Jasper with her eyes while searching ahead for him in her visions. _I was worrying about him being so close to the flock, what with their fast heartbeats, I thought that it might be too much for him. _She was alarmed now.

I looked ever so slightly to the left and turned back. No. They smelled too bird-like.

_Tell me if it gets too bad._

I moved just my eyes, up to the ceiling, then down.

_Thanks._

I was glad I couldn't answer aloud. What could I have said? 'My pleasure'? It was far from that. I hated having to listen to Jasper's struggling along with my own. Did he really have to push himself to his limits? Why did he have to flirt with disaster?

Even though we had gone hunting last night, only Emmett had gotten a chance to feed. We had just gotten out when the flock arrived. Besides, only three of us were out there at the time, Jasper not being out there. It had been two weeks before that that the rest of us had fed. This wasn't too long for most of us. A little uncomfortable sometimes — if the wind blew the wrong way, if a human came too close. Humans rarely came too close though. They didn't understand it consciously, but their instincts told them not to come too close. They knew we were dangerous.

Jasper was extremely dangerous right now.

Right then, a small girl paused at the end of our table to talk to her friend. She tossed her hair and ran her fingers through it. The heaters were blowing her scent in our direction. I was used to the thirst. It was no problem for me normally, but adding Jasper's thirst made it so much harder.

Jasper let his imagination get away from him. He started fantasizing about him getting up from our table and going over to the girl. Leaning down as if to whisper in her ear. Putting his lips to the arch of her throat, feeling the blood pulsing under her skin...

I kicked him in the shin — not hard enough to hurt him, just a little tap.

He looked up sheepishly and ducked his head. "Sorry," he muttered.

I shrugged.

"It's okay, Jasper. You weren't going to actually do anything, I could see that," Alice murmured reassuringly to him, although it wasn't entirely true.

It wasn't easy reading minds when you didn't want to or seeing the future. We were both freaks among those who were already freaks. We had to protect each others secrets.

_What was that all about?_ Max thought.

"Jasper was a bit thirsty, but he wouldn't do anything," I answered her unspoken question.

She shrugged it off. _Guess this happens a lot, _she thought.

I shrugged.

Alice took the tray that she had 'eaten' — Fang had really eaten it — and threw it out. She knew when Jasper had had enough of her reassurances. Even though Rose and Emmett were more flagrant with their relationship, Alice and Jasper knew each other better. It was as if they could read each other's minds.

_Edward Cullen._

I immediately turned my head to the sound of my name being called — um, thought.

My eyes locked on the chocolate-brown eyes of the new human girl, Bella. She had a soft, heart-shaped face with pale — almost translucent — skin. I had seen her face before, but not in person, only through the thoughts of all the people in this school. Having new students was like putting a shiny object in front of a child.

It took me a minute to realize that she was not the one to think my name.

_It's so obvious. She's _already_ crushing on the Cullens! _It was Jessica Stanley — she hadn't bothered me with her internal jabbering in a while. It had been a huge relief when she'd gotten over me. At the time, it had been so impossible to escape her constant fantasies, that I had wished that I were able to tell her what would happen if my lips — my teeth — had gotten anywhere near her. That would have certainly ended those fantasies. I almost smiled at the thought of her reaction.

_Like it'll do her any good. She's not really _that_ pretty — neither is that Max girl. I have no idea why Eric is practically drooling over them...or Mike._

She mentally winced on the last name. Her new crush — Mike Newton — was completely ignoring her for Bella. This made Jessica furious, although she hid it and explained what she knew about my family and Max's. I heard her from across the room. Apparently Bella had asked about us.

"The paler ones are Emmet and Edward Cullen and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen. They moved here two years ago with Dr. and Mrs. Cullen, their adopted parents. As for the others, all I know about them is that their names are Max, Nick, Jeff, and Krystal Ride. It's their first day too. They have two younger siblings — Zephyr and Ariel — who are in fourth grade. That Jeff kid, he's _blind_, andKrystal is a freshman. Max is in our trig class, remember?" — she nodded and Jessica continued. "Nick is in my Biology class, but he was real quiet and wouldn't talk to anyone. He acted kind of paranoid." _And he's kind of dreamy. I'd say it's a dead tie between him and Edward. Stick with reality, Jess. Stick to Mike._

"They...look very nice," Bella struggled to find words.

_Aren't I lucky? I've already had four classes with the newbies. I seem like such a celebrity._

"Of course!" Jessica agreed, giggling. "But the Cullens and Hales are _together_. Emmett and Rosalie and Alice and Jasper. And they _live_ together." Wow, big let down. She doesn't seem to know how Max and Fang — I mean _Nick _— feel. Well, she's no Jasper.

"Which is which?" Bella asked. "None of them look related..."

"Well, I don't know about the Rides — I'm guessing that they're adopted —, but the Cullens I _know_ are adopted. And the Hales — the blondes — are foster children. They _are _brother and sister — twins actually."

"But which is which?" Bella repeated her question.

"Emmett is the big one, Rosalie is the blonde girl, and Jasper is the pale blonde guy — all seniors. The Cullens and Hales are all sitting on the same side of the table. Max is the brown-haired girl and Krystal is the little mocha-skinned girl. Iggy is sitting with the other Rides, he's the blonde on that side. Fang is the dark-haired, olive-skinned Ride kid and Edward Cullen is the one with the bronze-looking hair. All the Rides are juniors except Krystal, as you've probably guessed."

"Jessica is telling the new girl all about us," I muttered to Emmett to distract myself.

_And what _does _the new girl think?_

I listened to where I had just seen Bella. There was nothing.

I turned my head to see if she was still there. She was. She was looking at us I waited until she spoke again. A person's mental voice is normally similar to their speaking voice.

"Edward is single," she whispered, too low for even Jessica to hear.

I listened again. Still nothing. I began to panic. I let the flood of voices that I had been blocking into my head.

_...wonder what her favorite kinds of music are. I hope she's in one of my classes so I can ask her... _Mike Newton thought two tables from where Bella was sitting.

_Why is he staring at her? He already has half the girls in the school waiting for him... _Eric Yorkie thought — sitting at the same table as Bella and obviously thinking about her.

_It's disgusting. Look at Jessica showing off her new 'best friend'. Even _Edward Cullen_ is _staring_!_... Lauren Mallory was thinking daggers at the girl.

_I have so much to do tonight! I have that trig homework and I'm babysitting the twins today... _Angela Weber — a quiet girl whose thoughts were abnormally kind — was the only one not thinking about the girl.

I heard every insignificant thought that they had, but still nothing from the girl.

"So...Edward is single?" Bella asked hesitantly.

_As if! No one could get Edward._ "Yeah, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. It seems that no one here is good enough for him."

I turned away so I could hide my smile. They didn't know how lucky they were that I didn't like any of them.

Underneath the humor, if felt a strange impulse to protect the girl from Jessica's thoughts. I tried to figure out the motivations behind the impulse.

Maybe it was just a long unknown protective instinct — the strong protecting the weak. The girl looked more fragile than anyone here — I could even see the pulse of blood beneath her translucent skin. I shouldn't concentrate on that. I was good at this life, but I was just as thirsty as Jasper. Thinking about blood wouldn't do any good for anyone.

She seemed unaware of the crease between her eyebrows.

How frustrating this was! It was clear on her face that she did not enjoy making conversation and being the center of attention at the table. Her shyness was clear from the way she hunched her shoulders. Yet I could only imagine, only sense, only see. There was still nothing from the girl. I couldn't hear her.

_Why_?

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. "Edward, let's go," said Max. We both had biology during the sixth hour as well as Iggy.

I looked away from the girl, feeling much relief. It was frustrating to continue to fail at this. It had always come naturally to me. Never needing to work at it. When I found a way to decipher the girl's thoughts — and I would, even if it was the last thing I did, which it wouldn't be — they would most surely be as petty and selfish as all the other humans'. They wouldn't be worth the effort it would take to hear them.

"So, is she afraid of us yet?" Emmett wouldn't let the question go unanswered.

I shrugged. He wasn't interested enough to press for more information than that and I shouldn't be either.

We got up and headed to our classes.

**Max's POV**

"TODAY'S THE DAY!" I SAID AS CHEERFULLY AS ANYONE POSSIBLY CAN WHEN TALKING ABOUT SCHOOL, especially a member of the flock.

"Yay," they said with varying levels of enthusiasm.

"Okay, so here are our schedules. Iggy, you have; Government, Spanish, Trigonometry, English, Lunch, Biology, and then Gym. Sorry, Ig, but you'll have to be with either me, Fang, or one of the Cullens at all times, to help you get your bearings. I know you don't like it, but it'll help you." — his face flushed when I said that — "Fang, you've got Trigonometry, Biology, Government, English, Lunch, Spanish, and Gym. I have English, Spanish, Trigonometry, Government, Lunch, Biology, and Gym. Nudge, you'll have Gym, Chemistry, English, Algebra, Lunch, Spanish, and finally, Geography. Gazzy, Angel, I've persuaded the school so you guys will be in the same class. You've got Mrs. Keller. We'll drop you off at the elementary school on our way." Yes, the Cullens went and bought us a car last night. A brand new Honda Odyssey. And a bunch of designer clothes. Honestly, how do they have the money to buy these things? Oh, right. They're centuries old.

"Actually, only Carlisle is over a century," Edward said jokingly. "The rest of us aren't _that _old...yet."

I rolled my eyes. "Anyway, we'll drive you guys there and then head over to the high school. Okay?"

"Yay! I've always wanted to go to a real school." Nudge was the most excited about this of all of us. Good for her. At least someone was happy about it.

We all hopped into the cars, the Cullens taking Edward's Volvo and the flock taking our Odyssey. Honestly, I thought Angel was probably better off than we were, what with her being able to read the teachers' minds to get the right answers. I dropped them off at Forks Elementary School which was only a couple of blocks away from Forks High.

We dropped off Gazzy and Angel. "Remember what to do?" I asked.

They nodded. "Memorize escape routes, if anyone morphs, do an up and away," Angel said.

"And lie _low_," I added, looking at Gazzy. "The school will call my cell if you try to blow anything up or something."

Yeah, you heard me. The Cullens not only took us in _and _gave us a _car_, they had to buy us freaking _cell phones_ too! Oh, well. At least we bought the laptop ourselves. _And_ if the Gasman gets into any trouble, the principal has someone to call who won't be the Cullens.

The Gasman and Angel headed towards the school, looking unusually stone-faced — just like me. I was so proud of them.

Great. Now we get to go to school with a bunch of smart people. Can't wait.

When we got to the school, we noticed that our car and the Cullens' were the only standouts. They were new, all the rest were probably hand-me-down cars.

Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as I'd thought it would be. No feel of an institution, no barbed wire or chain-link fences. Nothing like the kind of School I was used to.

Terrific as long as none of the teachers turned out to be Erasers. Yeah. Like that'll happen. I'm Max Ride. Since when is my life _ever _that easy?

We got to school and went into the main office because we were supposed to get a piece of paper signed by each of our teachers. Then we each headed off to our separate classes — Iggy had his Government with Alice.

As I walked into the English room, I saw the girl that had been in the car yesterday. She looked up as I walked in and appeared to recognize me but didn't say anything like, "Hey, aren't you that girl I saw who has wings?" That's enough for me. As long as no one says anything, I'll be as safe as anyone can when staying with a whole houseful of vampires. Even if they _are_ "vegetarians."

If anyone were to find out, I would just do an up and away — even through the ceiling. Or, a little less drastically, just tell the others that we had to leave in the secret language that Jeb had taught us while we were still stuck in the School.

The teacher's name was Mr. Mason. When I got the paper signed, he handed me a reading list for the rest of the year. Almost the entire class was staring — some at me and some at the girl from the car, whose name I found out was Bella. She and I both seemed to have an aversion to the attention. We looked at the reading list at the same time. While she looked like this would be a piece of cake, I was thinking _who the heck are these people?_ Since the flock and I have never been to an actual school before, we obviously didn't have a very good education, whereas this girl had probably been in school most of her life.

For most of the class, he lectured us on something that I would never need to know and I just zoned out while worrying about the rest of the flock.

Sometimes, I glanced at the girl and — most of the time — she was glancing at me too.

When the bell rang — an annoying buzzing sound — a baby-faced boy with pale-blond hair came up to me.

"Hi, I'm Mike. You're Max, right?"

"Uh-huh," I said. Great social skills, Max.

"Is that short for something? Like, Maxine?" he wondered.

"Nope."

"Well, I like it. It's sporty, cool, sophisticated. It's unique," he said, smiling.

"Yeah, that's me. _Very_ unique." Yep. Being a mutant bird-kid was definitely unique.

"What class do you have next?"

"I've got Spanish with Mrs. Goff. You?"

"Same. Want to walk with me?" he asked.

_Try to be normal, Max,_ said the Voice.

_Shut the heck up,_ I shot right back. _I _am_ capable of thinking for myself._

"Sure," I answered. "Why not? Oh, there's I — Jeff. Jeff!" Thankfully, Iggy remembered his fake name and that he had second hour with me.

"Jeff's my adopted brother," I explained quickly. "We were all orphaned at birth," true enough. "Our parents are on business trips a lot and this is one of their longest ones yet. They go around the world helping the needy and stuff. They're in Africa helping starving kids, so I have to help Jeff and the little kids." Excellent, Max! I mentally patted myself on the back.

"Hi, Max," Iggy said as he sauntered over to where he heard my voice coming from.

"Jeff, meet Mike."

"Hey," Mike said, extending his hand. Iggy unerringly found Mike's hand and shook it. It's creepy how he does that, he also _never_ misses a high-five.

The three of us headed to Mrs. Goff's classroom, Iggy listening intently for my familiar footsteps.

Then I realized, I had actually talked to someone besides my family — yes, I already thought of the Cullens as family — and they hadn't run screaming in terror. I might have made a friend. My second in fourteen years — Fang being my first — I was on a roll.

The rest of the morning was pretty boring, except for Trig. The girl was there again and she did talk to me this time.

"Do you know me?" she asked. "Because you keep acting like you do." How did she notice? All it was was a few sideways glances — most to make sure she was okay and I wouldn't have to save her just then.

I deflected her question by asking my own after responding. "Yeah, we have English together. What about you? You act as if _you_ know _me_. From somewhere other than school I mean."

"I thought I did, but it's more likely me going crazy. I think that some of my mom rubbed off on me. Besides, you looked like you knew me before just now — from before you walked into the English room."

"How do you think you knew me?" I asked, growing suspicious.

"I saw you while I was in Charlie's car yesterday."

"And...?" I prompted.

"You were flying," she whispered.

Okay, so that explains Angel's hearing thoughts about our — well, my — wings. "Wow. That does sound crazy. Probably just a dream or something, but I bet it would be real cool to be able to fly. The feel of air lifting you up from below...no boundaries above...just endless sky in front of you...that seems like it'd be pretty awesome." It most certainly was awesome.

"Anyway, I guess I'll see you later. It's a pretty small school. Only three hundred sixty-two students. _Way_ smaller than Phoenix," she said.

"Yeah," I responded, already reverting to my true, turtle-like personality. "I guess." I shrugged.

I didn't like Government at all; as I said, it's just blah and stuff that I'll never use.

At lunch, we sat with the Cullens. Since they don't eat and we need, like, three thousand calories a day — minimum — we got to eat their lunches. Surprisingly, nobody noticed. It didn't taste particularly good, but when you've been on the run for about four years, you can't really afford to be picky about _what_ you eat. Just, you know, _if_ you'll eat soon.

We were pretty much just digging into their food, that is, until I noticed that Jasper was having some trouble. Edward kicked him under the table.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"It's okay, Jasper. You weren't going to actually do anything, I could see that," Alice murmured reassuringly to him.

_What was that all about?_ I thought at him.

"Jasper was a bit thirsty, but he wouldn't do anything," He answered.

I shrugged it off. _Guess this happens a lot, _I thought — though it was not intended for him — he answered by shrugging. As if he didn't know. He's a freaking _mind-reader_! If he didn't know, nobody did.

_Calm down, Max. It's almost time to help,_ the annoying Voice said.

Right, the entire reason we came here at all.

Alice decided to leave right then, taking the tray that Fang had eaten the food from, and heading to her own class.

Then, Edward whispered something to Emmett who thought something back — which I only knew because I didn't see his lips move. Just then, Edward turned over to where the _other_ new girl and _her_ friends were sitting, meeting her gaze.

He turned away quickly, as did she. Then he seemed confused and looked over there again and saw her staring. Again. This time, only she turned away. Edward kept looking at her. He quickly got frustrated. What the heck was she thinking?_You don't have to answer, Edward, _I thought. He didn't even seem to notice. He was concentrating so hard, he didn't even notice the thoughts right next to him. Oh well. I shrugged it off. Probably nothing.

He finally seemed to come back to reality when I tapped him on the shoulder. "Edward, let's go," I said. He silently got up and he, Iggy, and I went off to biology.

_Showtime._

**Bella's POV**

_GREAT. FIRST DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL IN FORKS. AWESOME, _I THOUGHT WITH BITING SARCASM, STILL QUITE unenthusiastic about this.

I hopped in my truck and found the high school with no problem, seeing how small the town was.

I had a hard time finding the parking lot, so instead of driving around in the rain like an idiot, I decided to go into the office. Nobody else was parked there, so it must be off-limits, but I didn't care right then.

I reluctantly headed out of the toasty truck and into the tiny building. It was much warmer than I had expected. The nameplate on the desk said that the secretary's name was Mrs. Cope.

There were a lot of potted plants in there. As if there wasn't enough greenery outside. They just had to put more inside.

I introduced myself and saw the immediate recognition in her eyes when she heard my name. I was a topic of gossip no doubt. The Chief's only daughter — who has lived with her mom her whole life — finally returns to the small town where she was born.

Mrs. Cope handed me my schedule and a slip of paper that had to be signed by all my teachers and given to her at the end of the day.

My first class was English with Mr. Mason. I walked toward building three.

When I walked in, there didn't seem to be anything unusual about the class. I saw a wall of hooks covered with raincoats and decided that I should probably put mine there. Mr. Mason handed me a reading list when I asked him to sign the paper.

All eyes were staring at me. I felt my face begin to flush. I immediately looked down.

Then another girl headed into the room.

It was the girl with the wings. My eyes widened slightly.

No, I had just dreamt her up. Right? How could I deny the proof when she was standing right there in front of me.

She got her paper signed as well. Apparently, she was another new girl. She sat next to me as that was the only available seat. She also didn't like the attention and we both looked down at the reading list.

The material was fairly basic: Shakespeare, Chaucer, Faulkner, Bronte. I glanced at her. She looked like a nervous wreck. I mean — she looked good, but she kept glancing around as if expecting something to happen or someone to arrive. She also looked worried about somebody. She was just generally anxious.

I glanced at her a few times throughout class only to find her doing the same. She looked like she recognized me too. Neither of us said anything to each other, and when the period ended, I was practically ambushed by a gangly-looking boy with major skin problems and slick black hair.

"Aren't you Isabella Swan?" He seemed to be the overly-helpful, chess club type of guy.

I sighed. "It's Bella," I corrected him, smiling. At least half the students left turned to look at me. I couldn't look anywhere without meeting someone's curious eyes.

"What's your next class?"

I looked in my bag. "Uh, Government with Jefferson, building six."

"My class is in building four. I could show you the way if you want..." Yep, he's definitely overly-helpful. "I'm Eric," he added.

"Thanks," I said, tentatively. I smiled.

We retrieved our jackets from the hooks and headed out the door. I'm pretty sure that several people behind us were walking close enough to eavesdrop. The girl, Max, was walking a few yards in front of us with another boy from our class. Then, she called out to another boy, this one pale and light blond. He loped over to where she and the boy were waiting and they talked and headed to class. I caught a flash of her face before she headed in. She looked proud for some reason.

Eric interrupted my inner monologue. "This place must be really different than Phoenix, right?" he asked.

"Very different."

"Not much rain there, huh?"

"It only rains about three, maybe four, times a year."

"Wow. What's that like?" he wondered.

"Nice and sunny," I answered.

"You don't look tan. In fact, you're kinda pale," he said.

"My mom's part albino."

He seemed to mull over this concept a bit and I sighed. It seemed that when it's this dreary out, you lose your sense of humor. Within a few months, I'd forget how to use sarcasm.

We walked to the buildings by the gym. Eric walked up to the door with me, although, it was clearly marked.

"Good luck," he said. "Maybe we'll have some more classes together," he said hopefully.

I smiled and went inside.

By Trig, I recognized most of the faces in my classes. And I saw Max again. Mr. Varner made us both introduce ourselves to the class. Neither of us liked it. I decided to talk to her before class actually began.

"Do you know me?" I asked. "Because you keep acting like you do." And I thought I knew her.

She deflected my question, asking her own after responding with an obvious fact. "Yeah, we have English together. What about you? You act as if _you_ know _me_. From somewhere other than school I mean." I'm not surprised that _she_ noticed. She was always looking at me when I looked at her.

"I thought I did, but it's more likely me going crazy. I think that some of my mom rubbed off on me." That's pretty likely after living with my mom for the first seventeen years of your life. "Besides, you looked like you knew me before just now — from before you walked into the English room."

"How do you think you knew me?" She asked suspiciously.

"I saw you while I was in Charlie's car yesterday."

"And...?" She prompted.

"You were flying," I whispered, hoping not to attract _too _much attention. She didn't like it anymore than I did.

"Wow. That does sound crazy. Probably just a dream or something, but I bet it would be real cool to be able to fly. The feel of air lifting you up from below...no boundaries above...just endless sky in front of you...that seems like it'd be pretty awesome." She seemed to _know_ what it would feel like. Besides, the way she answered was suspicious. Agreeing with someone who says they're crazy is probably _not_ normal social skills, but what do I know. I've never actually fit in.

"Anyway, I guess I'll see you later. It's a pretty small school. Only three hundred sixty-two students. _Way_ smaller than Phoenix," I said.

"Yeah," she responded, "I guess." She shrugged.

At lunch, I sat with the girl who sat next to me in Trig and Spanish — I had forgotten her name — and a bunch of her friends. She introduced them to me and I forgot all their names as soon as she said them. We all sat at the end of a very crowded table. Most of them seemed impressed by her bravery of speaking to me. I would have been more impressed if she had spoken to Max. She was tiny,_ way_ shorter than my five foot, four inches, but her wildly curly, inky dark hair made up a lot of the difference. She looked like she would be eaten alive if she crossed Max. She babbled on and on about the teachers and other students, so I just smiled and nodded. I didn't even attempt to keep up. Eric waved at me from across the room.

That was when I saw them.

They sat all the way across the cafeteria from me, with Max. None of them were looking at me so it was safe to gawk at them without any fear of meeting curious eyes. Max and some of her friends were just wolfing down the food as if they hadn't eaten in days.

They didn't look alike at all. There were five boys in all, three sitting on one side with two other girls and two on the other side, sitting beside Max and another girl I didn't know.

I turned my attention to the side across from Max. One of the boys was big — he had muscles like a professional body builder with dark curly hair. The next was taller than the first, leaner, but still well muscled, and had honey-blond hair. They looked as if they should be in college, or even teachers here. The third was lanky, with an athletic build, and had untidy, bronze-colored hair.

The girls were exact opposites. One was a tall, statuesque blonde. She had the figure of one of those models that you would expect to see on the cover of Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every other girl in the room take a hit to her self-esteem, just by being there. The other was shorter, pixie-like, with spiky, dark hair.

Each of them had chalky pale skin. Paler than everybody else here — even paler than me, the albino. They all had very dark eyes, except the big one's — which were more of a gold — despite their difference in hair color. They also had dark bruises beneath their eyes — as if they were recovering from a sleepless night or a broken nose. Although their features were all perfectly straight, their faces angular.

They were all inhumanly beautiful. In fact, it was hard to decide which was more beautiful — the perfect blond girl, or perhaps the gorgeous bronze-haired boy. They all looked like the kinds of faces you'd see on the airbrushed cover of a beauty magazine, or in a painting of a master artist as the face of an angel.

Then there were the people who sat on the opposite side of the table. There were two boys and two girls — one being Max. One boy had dark, olive-toned skin and near black hair, he was very lean and as tall as — if not taller than — the boys on the other side. He looked tense, nervous, even as he scarfed down his food. The other was as pale as I and I noticed that Max tapped the table near his fork before he picked it up. Maybe he was blind? I recognized him as the kid Max had called to earlier, after first hour. I think his name was Jeff. Max, well, I recognized her, obviously. She had brown hair and eyes. Actually, her eyes were about the same shade as mine were. She seemed to have blond streaks in her hair. There was a younger looking girl who sat on the other side of the darker-skinned boy. She was black and had surprisingly light colored hair, almost a caramel. They all had a slightly muscular, sporty figure and, actually, they all looked pretty tense.

They all looked away from each other, Max and her friends gobbling their food — which seemed to be enough for two people at least for each of them —, while the people across from them looked at nothing in particular, it seemed. At some unknown cue, the pixie-like girl got up and walked away, tray of food supposedly eaten. Every move she made seemed like she was dancing. She glided out the back door after getting rid of her tray, much faster than I would have thought was possible. I looked back at the others, who still sat there, unchanging. Max looked up at the bronze-haired boy as if asking a question. He shrugged. The rest were done eating by now and mostly just looked around, flinching every once in a while as if they didn't want to be here at all, as if they were afraid someone would come and get them.

"Who are _they_?" I asked the girl from my Spanish class.

She looked up to see who I was talking about — though I was almost sure she already knew, based on my tone — suddenly, the bronze-haired boy looked at her for a split second, then his eyes darted to meet my gaze.

He looked away quickly, quicker than I could have, though I dropped my eyes, embarrassed. In that small flash of a glance, there was nothing in his face — as if she had called his name and he'd already made up his mind to not answer, as if it was just an involuntary response.

The girl giggled and mimicked my reaction.

"The paler ones are Emmet and Edward Cullen and Rosalie and Jasper Hale. The one who left was Alice Cullen. They moved here two years ago with Dr. and Mrs. Cullen, their adopted parents. As for the others, all I know about them is that their names are Max, Nick, Jeff, and Krystal Ride. It's their first day too. They have two younger siblings — Zephyr and Ariel — who are in fourth grade. That Jeff kid, he's _blind_, andKrystal is a freshman. Max is in our trig class, remember?" I nodded — it's not like _I_ could forget Max — and the girl continued. "Nick is in my Biology class, but he was real quiet and wouldn't talk to anyone. He acted kind of paranoid." I just nodded. I had picked up most of the stuff besides the names and siblings from their actions.

I glanced at the gorgeous boy. I saw his lips moving, ever so subtly, and got the feeling that he was talking very quietly to his family or one of the Rides.

They had very odd names. I thought. The Cullens had the kinds of names that grandparents would have. And the Rides' names were just plain ridiculous, I mean, who names their daughter Max? Unless it's short for something like Maxine. And Zephyr — what kind of name is that? Maybe that was in style here though — just weird type names? That's when I remembered that the girl's name was Jessica, a very common name. There had been two girls in my History class back in Phoenix named Jessica.

"They...look very nice," I struggled to find words extreme enough to describe them and finally gave up.

"Of course!" Jessica agreed, giggling. "But the Cullens and Hales are _together_. Emmett and Rosalie and Alice and Jasper. And they _live_ together." Oh. Wait, just Emmett and Rosalie and Alice and Jasper? Then Edward...no, don't get your hopes up, he might be going out with someone else.

"Which is which?" I asked. "None of them look related..." They certainly didn't.

"Well, I don't know about the Rides — I'm guessing that they're adopted —, but the Cullens I _know_ are adopted. And the Hales — the blondes — are foster children. They _are _brother and sister — twins actually."

"They seem a bit old to be foster children."

"Yeah, the Cullens took them in when they were only eight though. They're Mrs. Cullen's niece and nephew or something like that."

"But which is which?" I remembered my question and repeated it, impatient to learn the answer.

"Emmett is the big one, Rosalie is the blonde girl, and Jasper is the pale blonde guy — all seniors. The Cullens and Hales are all sitting on the same side of the table. Max is the brown-haired girl and Krystal is the little, black girl. Iggy is sitting with the other Rides, he's the blonde on that side. Fang is the dark-haired, olive-skinned Ride kid and Edward Cullen is the one with the bronze-looking hair. All the Rides are juniors except Krystal."

"Edward is single," I breathed, whispering softly enough that even Jessica didn't hear me.

I glanced at Edward, he was still looking at me with a frustrated expression on his face.

"So...Edward is single?" I asked tentatively.

"Yeah, but don't waste your time. He doesn't date. It seems that no one here is good enough for him." She sniffed. I wondered randomly when he had rejected her.

I bit my lip in an attempt to hide my smile and peeked at Edward Cullen again. He had his face turned away also, but his cheeks appeared lifted, as if he were smiling.

After a few minutes, I saw Max walk over and tap Edward on the shoulder and they all left. The Cullens all had a similar graceful lope — even Emmett. It was scary. I noticed that the Rides all had the same tense walk, as if they were on the lookout, or they were hiding something. Or both.

I sat at the table with Jessica and her friends longer than I would have if I had been sitting alone. I didn't want to be late for class on my first day.

One of Jessica's friends — who considerately reminded me that her name was Angela walked to Biology II with me because we had it the same time. We walked in silence until we arrived at the door.

"Good luck," she said. "You're probably going to be sitting next to Edward," she explained when I gave her a quizzical look.

Terrific. Let's see what the wonderful world of Biology II has to offer, maybe it'll even be something good.

**Third person's POV**

OF COURSE IT WAS RAINING AT THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, SO THE GASMAN AND ANGEL HAD TO STAY INSIDE for recess. They had read Swan Lake in class and Angel and her new friends were acting it out.

"I get to be Odette!" Angel shouted.

"I'm the second swan!" cried Tina.

"I get to be the littlest swan!" exclaimed Sarah.

They were having a great time leaping and dancing around the field. Angel didn't exactly do well at blending in. She would jump as high as she could — about eight feet in the air — and try to hang there as long as she could without using her wings.

The Gasman was just sitting alone and watching his sister and her friends while making a bomb, quietly enough that the teachers didn't notice him. Then, a kid climbed up the bleachers.

"Look, everybody! I'm gonna fly!" he shouted.

Gazzy looked up. _I hope he actually _has_ wings,_ he thought. Well, maybe he _did_ have wings. Maybe there were other kids like them — kids who were mutants — in the world.

"Yeah?" he said, looking directly at the kid. "Let's see."

The kid looked surprised, then set his jaw and crouched, tensing his muscles to spring. He jumped and fell instantly. He landed in an awkward, uncomfortable-looking position with a sickeningly loud _Crack!_ There was a moment of silence, and then he started bawling. "My arm! I think I broke my arm!" he wailed.

The playground supervisor rushed over to the kid, picked him up and rushed into the school towards the nurse's office. The Gasman went back to making his bomb.

A bigger kid came up to him. "What'd you do that for?" he asked.

"What?" Gazzy asked, looking up.

"Listen, when some idiot says he's gonna fly, you tell him to get down from there. Ya don't say 'Let's see!' What the heck's wrong with you?" The kid was seething with anger at this point.

Gazzy shrugged, but he was actually kind of hurt on the inside. "I didn't know," he said quietly.

The kid stared at him in confusion. "Did you grow up under a rock?"

"No," the Gasman said. "I just didn't know."

The kid made a face and walked away. Gazzy heard him say, "Yeah, he didn't know. That's 'cause he's from Planet fifty-dumb."

The Gasman's hands formed tiny lethal fists and his eyes narrowed.

When the class went inside, he immediately ducked into the boys' bathroom and took a stink bomb out and set it off. Later that day, he heard coughing and hacking and saw the kid running out of the bathroom. _Oh, sweet revenge, _he thought.

Monitor room at the School

JEB WATCHED THE SCREENS DEPICTING THE FLOCK IN VARIOUS ENVIRONMENTS, THOUGH ALL STILL SIMILAR. ARI was feeling dejected because his own father was paying more attention to them than to him.

"Dad, when will I —" Jeb cut him off.

"Not yet, son. We still need to pinpoint their location." Jeb was making Ari angry; he was holding Ari back. Ari wanted to sink his teeth into some bird-kid flesh. He had always looked up to them, especially Max, but when his father had helped them escape without Ari, he did what he had to do.

They had turned Ari into an Eraser. By his own request. Jeb had been surprised to find that when he left the flock two years ago. Ari had hoped that when he was a mutant freak like the flock, his father might pay more attention to him. Sadly, his father still didn't care about him as much as the flock.

Someday, he would get them and tear them apart. He knew he would. Someday, they would find where the flock was.


	5. Biology

4. BIOLOGY

**Edward's POV**

EMMETT, ROSALIE, AND JASPER WERE PORTRAYING SENIORS. I WAS PLAYING A YOUNGER ROLE AS A JUNIOR. Max, Fang, Iggy, and Nudge were acting older than they were. Max, Fang, and Iggy were pretending to be juniors with me and Nudge was supposed to be a freshman.

As Max, Iggy, and I headed off to biology, I prepared myself for boredom while they got ready in case an up and away — a maneuver in which they take off immediately, normally through a ceiling — was necessary. It wasn't likely that Mr. Banner, a man with average human intellect, would be able to pull anything out of this lecture that would surprise someone holding two graduate degrees in medicine. Max and Iggy might have trouble though, seeing as they've never been to school.

When I walked into the room, there was a new, empty table behind mine. That was for the Rides and the only reason it was empty was because no one else would dare to be anywhere near me. Good. I still had my table to myself.

I let my books spill across the table. Then, in walked the silent-minded girl, Bella Swan, escorted there by Angela.

"Good luck," I heard Angela say. _She'll really need it if she's sitting next to Edward. _"You're probably going to be sitting next to Edward," she explained. _I knew I shouldn't have said anything! I probably just scared her into the next century! Bella looks so afraid, or is she just anxious?.._

Though I was tempted to see the girl's reaction to this, I resisted. If I looked at her now, I wouldn't be able to stop. Then she might get hurt, and so would I if Max and Iggy got involved. They're each as strong as I am, and with two of them against one of me...

_Yes! Bella's in my class! It's too bad that the open seat's next to Cullen and not me..._ Mike was thoroughly annoying me with his fantasizing.

I felt sorry for her. With Max and Iggy in the seats behind me and all the rest full, she would have to sit next to me. I automatically cleared her side of the desk. She probably wouldn't be too comfortable there — she was in for a very long semester of Biology. Maybe sitting next to her would allow me to read her mind. Although, I've never needed close proximity before this... Maybe it has something to do with the flock, but I didn't have any trouble reading Max's mind, or Iggy's, or any of theirs for that matter.

As she walked by me to get to Mr. Banner's desk, she stepped right in the path of the heaters.

Her scent hit me like a wrecking ball. There was nothing that could describe — or illustrate — how I changed in that moment.

Right then, I was nothing like the human I once was; I was a hunter and she was my prey. There was nothing other than that truth.

There were no witnesses; they were already gone in my mind. Collateral damage. Her mysterious thoughts were forgotten. She wouldn't be thinking for much longer.

I was a vampire. She was the human with the sweetest blood I'd smelled in all my eighty-seven years as a vampire.

I hadn't known that there ever was such a sweet scent. If I had, I would have searched the whole world for my entire existence. I could just imagine the taste...

My throat burned as if it were on fire. My mouth was baked and burnt. The flow of venom to my mouth didn't help put out the flame, but instead fueled it. My stomach was twisted with hunger — just an echo of the thirst. My muscles were coiled to spring.

It hadn't even been a full second. She was just about to put down her foot.

As she did, her eyes slid toward me — she obviously didn't mean for me to meet her glance, but I did. When our eyes met, I saw myself reflected in her odd eyes — odd because of their depth, brown eyes were usually flat and dark, hers were deep and mysterious.

The shock of my face was what saved her.

She just had to make it harder, didn't she? Once she had processed my expression, she blushed deeply, her skin turning the most delicious shade of red. Her scent made it hard to think. My thoughts were uncontrollable, incoherent.

She picked up her pace, as if she understood the danger near her. The haste made her clumsy — she tripped and almost fell on the girl in front of me. She was weak, fragile, and very vulnerable — even worse than a normal human.

I tried focusing on the face of the monster inside me — the face I'd seen in her eyes and that had taken decades to beat back with much effort and discipline. Why did it have to surface now?

Her scent swirled around me, scattering my thoughts so much that I nearly jumped out of my seat to kill her in front of all those witnesses.

No. I couldn't.

I gripped the edge of the table in an attempt to stay in my chair. The wood of the table was pulverized in my hand, leaving a near perfect outline of my fingers carved in what wood was left.

Destroy evidence. That was a necessity. I quickly erased all traces that could lead them to me and left just a ragged hole and a pile of wood shavings which I scattered using my foot.

Destroy evidence. Collateral damage...

A voice snapped me out of my reverie.

"Hey, Edward. Why were you killing the table?" Max whispered low enough that no humans would hear her.

"I'm just...thirsty is all. I don't think I'll last more than the hour. Be ready to keep me away from Bella," I answered.

"Why?"

"She...smells very good — her blood..." We were both whispering as low as possible. Nobody seemed to hear us — except Iggy that is, and he already knows so there's no problem with him hearing us.

_Okay, why didn't I just think that?_ Max thought. _It could have saved us a lot of worrying about people hearing us, _I shrugged.

I would have to kill her. It would take me about five seconds to end all the lives in the room. No, I couldn't kill my friends. Besides, who's to say they wouldn't fight back. I saw to faces in front of me. One was the monster that I was. The other was Carlisle's.

I couldn't betray Carlisle by doing this — killing this innocent human. I wouldn't.

"Just don't let me hurt her. For Carlisle's sake," I pleaded.

"Okay."

I stopped the flow of air to my lungs so I couldn't smell that tempting scent and clenched my fist so that I wouldn't be able to hurt her.

I occupied myself with planning all the ways that I could kill her — I was very careful not to imagine the actual act of killing her. That would be too much.

That was how I made it through the hour. As soon as the bell rang, I rose — still being careful not to move too quickly for a human — and left.

I sat in the car until school was almost over. At that moment, I decided to go to the main office to try to rearrange my schedule.

I walked up to the front desk.

**Max's POV**

WE WALKED TO BIOLOGY: EDWARD, IGGY AND I. THE FLOCK WAS DOING A PRETTY GOOD JOB OF BLENDING IN SO far. Except the Gasman. I got a call during lunch, while Edward had seemed to be suffering from something, that he had set off a stink bomb in the boys' bathroom. I don't know how he managed to sneak that into his school, but he was so getting it when we got back to the Cullens' house.

We were the first ones to class. By this time, I was feeling confident because the annoying voice was finally helping me. So far, it had known everything I needed in eleventh grade.

I prepared myself for an up and away, just in case, although that didn't seem likely here. If one was needed though, all I needed to do was tap Iggy's hand to let him know.

Edward allowed his books to spill across his table.

Then, Bella walked in with another girl. The class was almost full by now and the only seat left was next to Edward.

"Good luck," I heard the other girl say."You're probably going to be sitting next to Edward," she said by way of explanation. Why did she need good luck? Edward was a great guy — at least he was if you knew him well enough.

Edward looked frustrated with something again. And angry at someone. He automatically cleared the other side of the desk so she could put her books there.

When she walked by him, everything about him changed. His black eyes went wild, his jaw squared, his muscles tensed — like when I'm about to kill an Eraser.

A whole second hadn't even gone by yet. She was just about to put her foot down.

Her eyes flickered toward him as she did — she obviously meant for him not to see, but I know he saw.

She picked up her pace, as if she thought there was danger near her. The haste made her a klutz — she tripped and nearly fell face-first on the girl in front of Edward.

I saw hunger and pain flashing throughout Edward's face. Thirst conflicting with... something. Maybe it was him not wanting to do the wrong thing? I didn't know.

He gripped the edge of the table, pulverizing it in the act. There was and outline of his fingers in the table now.

He quickly erased all traces using his fingertips to make it look like it could just be a random hole caused by pencils gouging out marks into the wood. He scattered the pile of shavings beneath his desk using his foot.

"Hey, Edward. Why were you killing the table?" I whispered as low as I could. Hopefully, only Edward and Iggy would hear.

"I'm just...thirsty is all. I don't think I'll last more than the hour. Be ready to keep me away from Bella," he replied.

"Why?"

"She...smells very good — her blood..." I don't think anyone heard us besides Ig.

Oh. That's what the problem was. I should've known.

_Okay, why didn't I just think that?_ I thought. _It could have saved us a lot of worrying about people hearing. _Edward shrugged.

I saw fear and betrayal, hurt and thirst warring for space on his face. Looks like thirst lost...this time at least. He didn't want to hurt anyone, not us, not his family. He probably didn't want to disappoint us.

"Just don't let me hurt her. For Carlisle's sake," he pleaded.

"Okay." He really didn't want to hurt somebody, maybe it was the girl, I didn't know, as long as he didn't hurt them.

The rest of class, I tried seeming smart. The Voice helped a lot, but biology was a bit easier than all of my other classes, what with all the medical knowledge and stuff I had gained from years of hearing those mad scientists talk about our biological makeup. Thanks to the Voice though, I answered with proper knowledge about _human_ DNA, not bird-kid DNA. Like instead of about thirty pairs of chromosomes — bird-kid, it's twenty-three — human. It certainly helps to get that right.

When class ended, Edward got up quickly and left, Iggy and I were the next ones out. We headed toward Gym, which was the only class we had with more than two of us together. It would be fun, to see all those athletes being beaten by us, if there was anything we were good at, it would be sports. As I said earlier, we were faster than humans — or vampires for that matter — and stronger than a fully grown man.

"C'mon Ig, let's go kick some butt. In gym. Not actual butt-kicking," I added after Iggy tensed up.

**Bella's POV**

ANGELA WENT TO SIT AT ONE OF THE BLACK-TOPPED LAB TABLES. SHE WAS RIGHT; THE ONLY OPEN SEAT WAS next to Edward Cullen. There was one table that was behind all the others and, coincidentally, it was right behind Edward Cullen, whose books were in an untidy mess on the table.

The table was occupied by none other than two of the Rides: Max and Jeff. They seemed to be getting along well with Edward, though no one else did. It seemed like the Rides knew the Cullens and Hales from somewhere else also. Although as far as I had heard, today was their first day.

He cleared the desk when he noticed me.

I was watching him as I passed him on the way to get my slip signed by Mr. Banner. When I did pass him, he went rigid. He was suddenly staring at me again. I saw the faintest look of hunger in his eyes... those coal black eyes. And his expression was full of hostility and hate. I looked away as quickly as I could, and, in my hurry, I managed to trip over the chair of the girl in front of him, luckily being able to catch myself on the table next to her.

Max seemed to have noticed Edward's behavior, which seemed strange to me — his behavior that is.

I couldn't hear most of their conversation, although I did hear a few words, like something about him killing the table and being thirsty. The last few words I heard as I sat down really scared me though.

"Just don't let me hurt her. For Carlisle's sake," he said.

"Okay."

I saw his posture change when I sat. He sat on the far edge of his chair and leaned as far away as possible with his head turned away from me as if he smelled a terrible odor. I inconspicuously sniffed my hair. It smelled like strawberries, not something terrible at least.

Though I tried to pay attention in class, my mind was still on those last sentences he had spoken. _Just don't let me hurt her._ Why would he hurt me?

I tossed my hair over my shoulder, making a thick curtain between Edward and myself.

I occasionally peeked at him through my hair, noting that he never relaxed his strained position. I also saw that he kept his left hand clenched into a fist, the tendons standing out beneath his pale skin.

I peeked at him once more before class was over. Big mistake. I saw those black eyes glaring down at me, filled with such hate and revulsion. I suddenly thought of the phrase "if looks could kill." Well, if looks _could _kill, I'd be dead...twice over.

Once the bell rang, he was out of his seat and had gathered his books in one fluid motion. By the time he was out the door, most of the class still hadn't gotten out of their seats.

Max and Jeff were the next ones out, though I hardly noticed since I was still staring after Edward Cullen.

"Are you Isabella Swan?" I heard a male voice ask.

"Bella," I corrected automatically as I looked up. Standing in front of my desk was a cute-looking, baby-faced boy with his pale blond hair gelled into neat, orderly spikes. He was beaming down at me in a friendly way, so _he _obviously didn't think I smelled bad.

"I'm Mike, Mike Newton."

"Hey, Mike."

"Do you need help finding your way to your next class?" he asked hopefully. Second time someone had asked me that today.

"I've got Gym, so I think I can find it."

"I've got Gym next too," he said, obviously thrilled at this fact. Now I recognized him as the guy who had walked with Max and Jeff after English, so he was in that class too.

He liked to talk, so he supplied most of the conversation on our way to Gym, making it easy for me. He had lived in California up until he was ten, so he understood my feelings about the sun. He was the nicest person I'd met this entire day.

As we entered the gym, he asked, "What did you do to Cullen? He's never acted like that. Actually, today has been the only day I've seen him talk to anyone besides his family, so I was surprised he acted that way around you."

Huh, so that's not his usual behavior. I figured as much. Let's see how well I play dumb.

"Was that who I sat next to in Biology?" I asked, rather pathetically if you ask me.

"Yeah," he said. "He looked like he was in pain."

"I don't know why," I responded. "I never said a word to him."

"He's a real weird guy, that Cullen," Mike said. "If I'd been lucky enough to have you sitting next to me, I'd have talked to you." He lingered instead of heading to the locker room immediately.

I smiled at him as he left. He was a nice guy. He was friendly, but it wasn't enough to ease my irritation at Edward or myself. If that was unusual for Edward, he obviously didn't like me, and I saw a girl I thought had wings. I walked into the locker room.

_Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear_. More quotations, but when I walked in, lo and behold, there was Max. This was just the most interesting day ever, wasn't it?


	6. Afternoon

**A/N: Hey everbody, sorry it's taken me sooooo looooong to update. I've been job hunting! Might have some success. We'll see. If I forget about you guys for more than a month or so, I probably have a job. Anyway, here's chapter 5.  
>AN 2: Sorry it took so long to get through the 1st chap. ENJOY!  
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5. AFTERNOON

**Max's POV**

I HEADED INTO THE TINY LOCKER ROOM. COACH CLAPP, THE GYM TEACHER, HAD FOUND EACH OF US A UNIFORM. IGGY LISTENED FOR FANG'S FOOTSTEPS AS THEY HEADED FOR THE BOYS' ROOM, and I for the girls room. Let me tell you, it is almost _impossible _to change out of a shirt while still attempting to hide your wings from view. I eventually figured out a technique that worked pretty well. I couldn't imagine how hard the boys had it, they didn't even have a tank top to attempt to cover theirs. But, honestly, if it had been any—and I mean _any_—of the flock members, I would have been perfectly fine changing normally, but the point here was to blend in, so blend we would. Until we got out of here, that is. I hoped it would be over soon.

AAGHH! Bad headache... brain exploding... _Voice, I thought we had established this: NO HEADACHES! _I screamed in my mind.

_Max, _the Voice intoned, not noticing my complaint, _your time is not nearly over. This is just the beginning_. It was really freaking me out right now.

_What does that mean? _ I thought angrily.

No response. Dumb Voice doesn't even know how to respond to a direct question.

I had just finished changing into the uniform when in walks _that girl_ again — and you know who I'm talking about, don't pretend you don't or else you probably wouldn't be reading this. Being me, I flounced my way out of the room — meaning I pretty much just ran like a bat out of heck.

We were playing volleyball. The flock and I had never actually played sports before — that is, unless you count fighting off bad guys using the ancient art of Max fu as a sport. Despite this fact, we would be beating the pants off those guys, we were made to be light, fast, and very, very strong. Even little Angel was stronger than a grown man. I saw the guy from after English, Mike, and he smiled at me. I returned the smile without thinking, though mine was a bit less friendly.

Well, you don't have to be a genius to know that Ig, Fang and I were all put on the same team of course... with Bella. She didn't really do anything though, but it seemed better that she didn't. The only time she even touched the ball was when it was her turn to serve. Unsurprisingly, Fang, Iggy and I were good at spiking...and the only ones on our team who could. We had Mike, Bella, the three of us, and a girl named Jennifer on our team. We could usually jump higher than any human — Angel could jump maybe eight feet without spreading her wings — and stay in the air longer because we were lighter. With us spiking it over and over, and most of us doing pretty well on serving it, the other team hardly had a chance with the ball. Of course, Iggy only needed help with the serving. Man! He's got super-super hearing or something, I swear that he could hear the ball coming at him, we don't even need to let him know about it. Even though he's blind and all, he can usually serve it into just the right spot when he hears the other team's shoes squeaking on the floor. Super-hearing or not, squeaky shoes bother my ears!

When we got outside, it wasn't raining anymore, but it was windier.

We saw the other girl going toward the office because she was also a new student. When Iggy, Fang, Nudge and I got into the office, we found Edward in there, talking to the receptionist. As the wind blew in, he stiffened and turned around, looking toward Bella — actually, he seemed to be glaring murderously.

"Never mind," he said, his voice low and flat. "I see that there's nothing you can do. Thank you anyway for trying." With that, he turned and walked out of the room. We hurriedly turned in our slips and rushed out behind him. He walked to his car as we walked to ours. We headed over to the elementary school so that I could talk to the principal about the Gasman. How he snuck a stink bomb in was beyond me — or why he set it off for that matter —, but he would sooo get it as soon as we were back at the Cullens'.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Lewis?" I asked as I walked in the room. Gazzy was sitting in a chair in the corner of the principal's office.

"Yes, Max is it?" I nodded. "We have reason to believe that your younger brother set off a stink bomb in the boys' lavatory," he stated.

"Do you have proof?" I asked him.

"As a matter of fact, we have an eyewitness. Another young boy saw your brother put something in the restroom and just leave."

Huh. No one had ever caught the Gasman before, how did this guy do it?

"Are you absolutely sure that it was my brother who put a stink bomb in there? I mean, he says he didn't do it. You should know, sir, our family is very religious. We don't lie, sir." I was really having a good time playing innocent, and he seemed to believe me.

WE ARRIVED AT THE CULLENS' TO FIND OUT THAT EDWARD HAD UP AND LEFT THEM. _BELLA, _I THOUGHT. HE DIDN'T WANT TO HURT HER SO HE WAS LEAVING. NOW WAS NOT THE TIME FOR ME TO worry about Edward's personal life though; Gazzy had to learn that when I say blend in, I mean no stink bombs.

"Gazzy," I called. The others had waited for us in the car, but as soon as we got out, the Gasman had zipped up to the room that he shared with the other guys — formerly Carlisle and Esme's. "Oh, no you don't," I cried. "Get back here!" I chased him up and looked him in the eye. Keeping my voice calm and steady, I asked, "Why?" Just that.

Poor kid coulda burst into tears, but he didn't 'cause he's _way _stronger than that. "A kid made fun of me," he stated simply, as if that would justify blowing our cover.

"Gazzy," I pleaded, "no more stink bombs or anything, okay? It's like sending up a flare to any Erasers saying, 'We're right here! Come and kill us!' Your handy-work is unmistakable," I said, imagining what would happen then. Would the Cullen's help us. Now what was that I had heard about vampires' relationship with werewolves...? Oh, yeah — they hate each other! Hmm... I wonder if that applies to werewolf-like genetic mutants.

"Okay," he sighed.

As we headed downstairs to do our homework — ICK! — I continued my little anti-Eraser fantasy. So let's see, how would it start. Well, obviously the Erasers would track us down and try to attack us at the Cullens' house, but we would shoot out the window as soon as we saw them. The Cullens would hear the commotion and — _BAM! _Down go the Erasers! High fives all around! Applause from the audience! And curtain!

As you can figure I was smiling randomly throughout the rest of the day as imagined this scene and others like it over and over and over.

**Edward's POV**

"MRS. COPE?" I ASKED WHEN SHE DIDN'T SEEM TO NOTICE MY ENTRANCE.

"Yes, Edward?" she asked, flustered. _Don't even think about it. He's practically young enough to be my son. _She was wrong, of course. I was old enough to be her grandfather. "What can I do for you?"

Even though I was uncomfortable, I knew how to be charming when I wanted to. This seemed like a good time for it.

I leaned forward and looked as deeply as I could into her utterly depthless eyes.

"I was wondering if you could try to change my schedule?"

Her heart rate increased drastically.

"Of course. What exactly is the problem?"

"I was wondering if I could transfer from Biology to a higher-level class like Physics. Seeing as I've already studied this before..."

"Of course you have. You went to that accelerated school in Alaska, right." She pursed her lips as she considered this. _They all ought to be in college by now. All the teachers are always complaining about them. All perfect four-point-ohs, never a wrong answer, never a hesitation — it's as if they have some way to cheat in every single subject. Mr. Varner would much rather believe someone was cheating instead of having a student be smarter than him... Their mother probably tutors them... _"unfortunately, Edward, physics is pretty full right now, and Mr. Banner doesn't like having more than twenty-five students in a class —"

"I assure you, I wouldn't be any trouble."

_Of course. The perfect Cullens never cause trouble. _"I know, Edward, but there just aren't enough seats."

"Maybe I could just drop the class?" I asked hopefully.

"Drop Biology? But you wouldn't have enough credits to graduate if you did." _How hard can it be to sit through something you've already learned? There's got to be a problem with Mr. Banner. Maybe I should talk to him about it._

"I could easily catch up next year."

"You should ask your parents about it."

The door opened behind me, but whoever it was didn't think anything of my being there. I leaned forward even farther to try looking deeper into her eyes. This would have worked better if I had had a chance to actually feed last night. My eyes would have been gold rather than the black they were — the black frightened people like it should.

"Please, Mrs. Cope?" I pleaded. "Sixth hour Biology can't be the only option. There must be some other open slot." I made my voice as smooth as I could.

_He's too young._ Mrs. Cope kept reminding herself. "Perhaps I could talk to Bo — Mr. Banner about —"

Just then, the door opened and a gust of wind blew through the office. I leaned toward Mrs. Cope now in an attempt to keep myself from attacking the person who had entered.

A second changed everything. A second changed why I was here, why I leaned toward the secretary, a second changed the entire atmosphere in the tiny room.

In one second, Max, Fang, Iggy, and Nudge opened the door to hand in their slips with their teachers' signatures and the wind blew around the scents in the air.

The first person to enter had been Bella. That was why I hadn't heard her thinking about me.

I slowly turned around to glare at the girl who was innocent of everything. All she had done was smell good.

The Rides all instantly knew what was happening, and — unanimously — shouted in their minds _Snap out of it, Edward! Don't do it!_

Thanks to them I did snap out of it.

"Never mind," I said to Mrs. Cope. "I see that there's nothing you can do. Thank you anyway for trying."

My friends all turned in their slips and we left for our cars. The Rides were going to pick up the Gasman and Angel — somehow, Gazzy had set off a stink bomb that he had stashed in his backpack and Max had gotten a call about it — so they were safe, but I was going to leave in order to keep myself from hurting anyone else.

When I got to my Volvo, I announced, "I'm leaving."

"Why?" asked Alice.

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

"You'll hurt Esme if you leave, Edward," she countered.

"Drop off a car at the hospital. I'm going to borrow Carlisle's." That was all I said. I ran off to the hospital and asked Carlisle to borrow his car. He agreed, hesitantly, but he still agreed.

I felt my stress melting away as the road flew away beneath my tires.

**Bella's POV**

AS SOON AS SHE SAW ME, MAX RAN OUT OF THE LOCKER ROOM. I CHANGED INTO MY OWN UNIFORM AND WENT TO THE MAIN PART OF THE GYM.

We were playing volleyball today and I was on the same team as all three of the Rides. Of course they were very athletic, unlike myself. I swear, they would stay in the air for around two minutes when they spiked the ball. Which they did when they jumped higher than humanly possible. The other members on our team were Mike and some other girl. Everyone else got us at least one point, but when I had the ball to serve, it didn't even make it to the net so most of the time I just watched my teammates hit the ball around.

Finally, the bell rang and I was able to leave the gym. Luckily, it wasn't raining, but it was quite windy.

When I entered the office, I saw Edward Cullen leaning over the desk, arguing with the secretary. I could only get the gist of their words, but it seemed like he wanted to get out of sixth-hour Biology. Trade it for any other time.

Disbelief washed over me. I couldn't believe that he was trying to transfer out because of _me_. No. it must have been another thing entirely, something before Biology.

Then, a gust of wind blew in; the Rides were here. As soon as the door opened, I saw Edward stiffen. Then he turned to glare at me — I nearly flinched at those black eyes, but I suppressed it.

"Never mind," he said flatly. "I see that there's nothing you can do. Thank you anyway for trying." He turned and stalked out to his car — the silver Volvo, I noted. The Rides turned in their slips and left without a word. I spoke to the secretary as she asked how my day had been.

I saw the Rides reach their car — a Honda, the only other new car in the lot. Funny, when I had seen Max yesterday — though only from a distance — she had looked like she couldn't afford a new outfit, let alone a car. _Besides, _I thought wryly, _why drive when you can fly?_

My truck seemed to be the last car in the parking lot when I finally reached it, finding it a haven in this dreary, cold world of green and winged people.

I merely sat in the cab for a while just staring at the blank windshield, until, finally, I was cold enough that I needed to turn the heat on. I turned the key and with a deafening roar, the engine sprang to life. I drove back to Charlie's house, all the while fighting the tears that filled my eyes to the brim.


	7. Next Week

**A/N: Sorry I kind of forgot about you guys during the craziness of school starting. I'm feeling a bit tired and don't really feel like going through an entire chapter of Midnight Sun to paraphrase everything. Disclaimer to James Patterson and Stefani Meyer.**

6. NEXT WEEK

**Edward's POV**

I LEANED AGAINST THE SNOW BANK, LETTING THE POWDERY SUBSTANCE ENVELOPE ME. IT DIDN'T MATTER, I couldn't have seen anything but that face anyway.

The sky would have been beautiful if I could have seen it though. It was a clear night, the stars glowing around her face, some blue and some yellow. They swirled throughout the sky, making majestic patterns.

I still wasn't any better — after six days in Denali, I still couldn't get away from the temptation of that girl. Her scent...such a wonderful scent...

I stared into the starry sky, but all I saw was her face — an unremarkable human's face, plain even. I just wasn't able to get it out of my head.

I heard the thoughts growing nearer before the footsteps, though both could be heard easily. The sound of Tanya's walking was but a whisper in the world of silence surrounding me.

I wasn't surprised that she'd followed me though. I'd heard her thinking of what she would say for a few days now, waiting until she knew exactly what she would say.

I saw her when she was about sixty yards away, jumping onto the tip of a black rock in the whiteness of the snow. She balanced there on her bare feet for a moment, looking like a statue.

Her skin was nearly silver in the dim light of the stars, her curly, blond hair was more pink with its faint strawberry tint. Her eyes were like liquid amber and gleamed when she finally saw me, nearly buried beneath the snow, as I saw her full lips slowly curl into a smile.

Again, it would have been an exquisite sight — if I could have seen her. I sighed.

She crouched at the edge of the stone, bending low enough to touch the rock with her fingertips, as she coiled her muscles to spring.

_Cannonball,_ was the only word she thought.

Then, she launched into the air like a miniature space shuttle, she herself looked like just a shadowy shape, twisting in midair, curling up just before hitting the snow bank next to me.

The snow made a minuscule flurry as she landed. Next thing I knew, all I could see with my eyes was black, the snow had buried me completely, like I would be if I were a human and had died when I should have.

Again, I sighed, though I made no attempt to move the snow off myself. The lack of light had no affect on me. All there was was her face and her scent. I cringed slightly, trying to avoid thinking about that scent.

"Edward?"

I vaguely saw hands flying through the snow, trying to dig me up. Tanya quickly brushed the white, powdery snow off my face, not once meeting my eyes.

"Sorry," she murmured. "I was just joking."

"I know. Your joke was very funny."

Her full lips formed a frown.

"Kate said that I shouldn't be bothering you; Irina agreed."

"Of course you aren't," I soothed her, feeling like Max did when she had to take care of Gazzy and Angel. "Actually, I'm the one being rude — it's disgusting. I'm terribly sorry."

_Are you going home? _she thought.

"I'm...not sure...yet."

_You're not staying. _It wasn't a question, nor a command, but simply a statement of facts.

"No. It hasn't...helped...with my...situation."

The corners of her mouth turned down further into a grimace. "Is that my fault?"

"Of course it's not," I lied smoothly.

_Don't lie to seem like a gentleman. I've known you too long to fall for that now._

Without thinking, I smiled.

_I'm making you uncomfortable,_ she accused.

"No, of course not."

She arched an eyebrow in disbelief — she looked so...well, unconvinced, that I had to laugh. A short chuckle, then a sigh.

"Just a bit," I admitted.

She sighed, too, and folded her hands to rest her chin on them. She seemed ashamed of herself.

"You're much lovelier than the stars, Tanya; you always have been — as you very well know. Just because I'm stubborn doesn't mean that you should give up completely." I snickered, thinking how unlikely that would be.

"You know how little I get rejected," she stated. "I'm not used to it." She was grumbling as she pushed her lower lip out into a pout.

"Of course you're not," I agreed, as I tried — quite unsuccessfully might I add — to block the images in her head. She was remember thousands of her more successful attempts — a great portion of them being human men. She preferred them because they were much easier to find than a single, male vampire, plus, they were soft and warm. And always eager. Always. This is why Angel is so lucky. She doesn't have to listen to the thoughts; I have no choice.

"Succubus." I was teasing her, trying to stop the vivid pictures floating through her mind.

She smiled, showing her brilliantly white teeth. "The original."

Tanya and her sisters had taken a while to discover the consciences. Finally, because of their love of human men, they were able to give up human blood, and their lovers now lived.

"When you came here," Tanya said. "I thought that maybe..."

I knew what she'd thought. I probably should have anticipated that her reaction would be that way. My mind hadn't been working correctly at the time.

"You expected me to have changed my mind."

"Yes." She frowned.

"I feel monstrous for disappointing you, Tanya. You know I wouldn't do that on purpose. I wasn't thinking clearly right then. I was... rushing when I left."

"Would you tell me why...?"

I curled up in defense, trying to keep all my emotions in me that way. "I really don't feel like talking about why I left right now."

Tanya, Irina and Kate were very good at the life of a vegetarian vampire, even better than Carlisle in the fact that they could be so close to the humans that used to be their pray without slipping up. I would be too embarrassed to have told Tanya about the nature of my dilemma.

"Let me guess, it's about a girl?" she asked, as if she were oblivious to my mood.

I laughed humorlessly and grumbled, "Not how you think it is."

She was silent as she ran through a bunch of scenarios, trying to figure out the hidden meaning in my words.

"Way off. All of them," I stated.

"Can't I have a hint?" she begged.

"Let's leave it alone please, Tanya."

Again, she became silent. I tried ignoring her in favor viewing the stars that I couldn't see.

After a moment, she decided to give up on the speculations about my problems. She changed the topic to another issue for me.

_Will you go back to Carlisle when you leave?_

"I doubt it," I whispered.

_Then where?_

Where? I echoed her question over and over in my head. I had thought on this already, but I always drew a blank on the answer. I couldn't think of anywhere I'd rather be than with my family and the flock. There was nothing I wanted to do and I wouldn't even be going anywhere really. I could only run from my demon.

I despised this fact. I wasn't a coward, I never had been.

Tanya put her arm across my shoulders, causing me to stiffen. At least she didn't mean it to be more than a comfort. For the most part.

"I bet you will return to Carlisle," she said with a bit of her original Russian accent. "It does not matter what — or who — made you leave. You are the kind of person who faces — and conquers — life's challenges head on."

She was positive that she knew this about me. I attempted to truly see and be how she saw me in her mind. To be the person who would face things head on. It was amazingly nice to see myself the way she did. Until that one hour in my biology class, there had not once been a moment when I'd doubted myself and my ability to face all challenges brought before me.

As I kissed her cheek, she turned her face towards me; puckered lips and all. I drew back and she smiled at my speed.

"Thanks, Tanya. I needed to hear that."

"You're welcome. I really wish that you could be a little more reasonable about some things, Edward."

"Sorry, Tanya. You deserve someone better than me and you will find him some day. I'm like you. Still looking for what I haven't found."

"Well, if I don't see you again before you leave... goodbye, Edward."

"Goodbye, Tanya." Even while I was saying the words, I could see myself leaving and going back home. Being strong enough to do so. "Thank you, Tanya. Thank you so much."

Quickly and gracefully, she was standing and then leaving; she was so fast that she didn't leave any prints in the snow. She left without looking back. She was even more upset about the rejection than she would let me know. She wasn't planning on seeing me before I left.

I frowned, disgusted with myself. I kept hurting the people I cared about. First Esme when I left, now Tanya. I hated it. I knew that Tanya's feelings weren't exactly pure and not very deep, and I couldn't return them honestly. Never the less, I was a monster.

I curled up to look at the stars again, though I was now impatient to leave. I was sure that Alice could see me coming home and tell everybody. They would be happy about this — especially Carlisle and Esme. Yet I still stared at the sky with unseeing eyes. This must be how Iggy felt. All I could see was _her _face with _her _chocolate brown eyes. These eyes seemed to be silently asking what this decision meant for her. Of course, I had no way to be certain if this was what she really wanted to know. Even though this was a creation of my imagination, I couldn't hear her mind. Bella's eyes were continuously questioning me and a clear view of the sky was still being elusive. Sighing, I gave up with this, and rose. If I were to run, then it wouldn't even take me an hour to reach Carlisle's car...

Now I was rushing to see my family and friends — and wanting so, _so_ much to act like — no — to _be_ the Edward who faced things head on — I raced across the illuminated field of snow, going so fast that there was no evidence of my passage.

**Max's POV**

OKAY, WHEN WE GOT THE UPDATE, IT SEEMED THAT EDWARD HAD GONE TO VISIT SOME FRIENDS OF THE Cullens in Denali, Alaska. The Cullens decided to go hunting since it had been about two weeks since their last _successful_ hunting trip — remember, we sabotaged the last one? — although Esme was worried about us having something to eat. I told her that as long as there's something in the fridge, Iggy could whip something up for us. I was surprised when she didn't question Iggy's cooking skills, maybe she was just too hungry — uh, thirsty — to care at that moment, though that seemed extremely unlike her from what I'd seen.

Anyway, they were all back before morning. Except Edward. He spent about a week up there. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Before we went to school the next day, Alice had a vision about me. And Bella. She saw Bella and me as best friends, and Bella knew my secret, she was watching me fly around. I thought that was going to happen, like, never.

Boy was I wrong.


End file.
